U.S. Green Building Council recognizes College’s new residence halls
Two of Dartmouth’s recently completed residence halls have been recognized
by the U.S. Green Building Council for their
environmental sustainability, winning Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED) gold certifications. The gold certifications come on the heels of
silver certifications from LEED awarded to two newly built academic facilities
on campus.
Dartmouth’s Fahey/McLane residence halls, opened in 2006, were designed for
energy efficiency. (Photo by Joseph Mehling ´69)
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The residence halls, McLane and Fahey, located on the Tuck Mall, were
completed in fall 2006 and together house 162 students. Both buildings echo
Dartmouth’s traditional Georgian architecture with their brick exteriors, white
trim, and copper roofs, but inside, they rely on cutting-edge energy-saving
technologies and strategies to run more greenly and efficiently. Their design
takes advantage of natural light and careful use of space to create an
enjoyable, livable environment for the residents.
Matt Purcell, associate director of construction for the Office of Planning Design
& Construction, explains that the buildings’ energy-saving features
include a heat-recovery drain system that uses copper tubing to recover heat
from wastewater to cheaply heat clean water, heat-recovery wheels to recapture
heat from the ventilation system, and rain gardens to capture storm water on
site and return it to the aquifer.
Other standout examples of the buildings’ energy efficiency are the
geothermal wells. The 1,500-foot deep wells use the earth as both a heat source
in the cold months and a heat-sink to cool the buildings in the summer. These
technologies, combined with a highly efficient building envelope (exterior)
designed to prevent energy from escaping, resulted in gold LEED certifications
for both buildings.
The LEED Green Building Rating System, which awards credits for meeting
specified green building criteria, provide a widely accepted set of standards
for environmentally sustainable building design, construction, and operation.
“We’re very pleased to receive these gold certifications, which reflect a
larger, campus-wide effort to reduce energy use and make the College more
sustainable,” says Associate Provost Mary Gorman. Those efforts include looking
at what can be done to improve energy efficiency in all the buildings on
Dartmouth’s campus, some of which were built more than a century ago.
Earlier this year, recently completed academic facilities Kemeny Hall and
Haldeman Center received silver LEED certifications. Kemeny and Haldeman
feature many of the same energy-saving techniques employed by Fahey and
McLane.
By GENEVIEVE HAAS
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