The Seminar II Building
Seminar II is not just a building; it is a major step towards creating a more sustainable future of Evergreen and the surrounding community. The Sem II building, as we at Evergreen call it, has become the hot spot for a majority of our classes. Professors are eager to reserve classrooms in this state of the art building for a variety of reasons. A new facility, with new technology and new amenities is very attractive to teachers and students alike. The classrooms themselves are much larger and cozier than other areas on campus. However, the things that most people do not know about this building are the things that make it so unique. Special attention was taken during the design and construction phase to create a sustainable and economical building that could provide an example for the rest of the community.
This 159,862 square foot building first began to take shape in 2002. The process of designing and building the facility took over 2 years and 44.1 million dollars to complete. There were five main areas of focus when Seminar II began taking design. The architects, engineers, Evergreen students and faculty who were part of the planning committee focused primarily on building ecology, energy efficiency, building format, the materials being used and overall good design. Over 10% of the building is made of recyclable materials, including fly ash in the concrete walls and structural members and re-used gymnasium floor in some of the seminar rooms. Special considerations were taken regarding almost every aspect of the building. These range from studying the lowest impact the footprint of the building would make to the environment to the green rooftops that cover almost 40% of the roof, which create less impervious surfaces and allow rainwater to filter to nearby rivers and streams more naturally.
The building is known to be almost 62% more efficient than other conventional buildings being built to date. This was done by use of new engineering and architectural design techniques. For example, natural ventilation, hydronic heat, automatic shading, low E glass, and digital controls all help make this building more eco friendly.
It is now three years since Seminar II opened and in this time it has won national awards and recognition for it's sustainable design. Currently the U.S. Green Building Council has four different levels of LEED (meaning Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) to summarize the efficiency rating of a building, which are Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Sem II earned a Gold LEED rating from the U.S. Green Building Council, which made it one of the first buildings in the northwest to achieve this new standard. Les Purce, President of The Evergreen State College states "Evergreen's award demonstrates its leadership role in the progressive move toward green building and represents the growing market transformation under way in the country and around the world. Earlier this month, Washington state Gov. Christine Gregoire signed legislation making Washington the first state in the country to require public buildings to be constructed with standards encouraging energy conservation and recycling."
The construction of the Seminar II building and all of the intuitive designs it maintains is a further example of Evergreen's commitment to moving forward and trying to create an environmentally friendly campus. This building is currently being used as a blueprint for other buildings on this campus and across the country as it models the possibility of creating an efficient and sustainable lifestyle.
Links for additional info
http://www.evergreen.edu/facilities/buildings/018Seminar2/projects/01_03/semIIdescription.htm
http://www.aiatopten.org/hpb/overview.cfm?ProjectID=464
http://www.betterbricks.com/default.aspx?pid=casestudy&casestudyid=18§ionname=overview