Green Living!

Colorado State’s new $45 million Academic Village may feature such sustainable building elements as stone recovered from demolished buildings on campus, low-flow plumbing fixtures, recycled-content flooring, and on-site power generation. Last spring, students enrolled in Professor Brian Dunbar’s graduate-level course, Sustainable Technologies in the Built Environment, presented these and other sustainable building ideas to the architects and CSU staff involved with the project.

Designed for 420 on-campus students, the village – a cluster of buildings surrounding a central plaza – will create a space that integrates residence life with academic activities. Each building will include a living section with residence hall rooms and multi-purpose spaces that can be devoted to classrooms, seminars, laboratories, faculty and graduate student offices, and social areas. A separate commons building will feature a dining facility and additional multi-purpose space.

Students studying construction management, landscape architecture, interior design, and mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering, as well as students in the Resident Hall Association, are involved in various aspects of the project. The students are working to incorporate actions that raise resource awareness, promote sustainability, and decrease resource consumption as a model for future campus construction.

Involving students in the design process is part of the overall concept of making the village a project that teaches by being environmentally sensitive, says Josie Plaut, a CM graduate student with an emphasis in sustainable building. “Professors will be encouraged to develop classes that use the buildings to teach students about elements of sustainable design, engineering, and construction. Residents may participate in activities that teach them how to be more environmentally responsible occupants of their buildings.”

Representing the CM department’s Institute for the Built Environment (IBE), Plaut is part of a team that is researching sustainable building technologies and materials and suggesting ways to incorporate green building practices into the Academic Village. The IBE is also helping to set sustainability goals for the project and create sustainable design guidelines for all University housing projects, adds Plaut.

Building commissioning and energy modeling are two green building strategies that have already been selected. With monies received from the City of Fort Collins and the State of Colorado, the University will employ a commissioning agent to thoroughly check the design and installation of green building strategies and mechanical systems in the complex. Energy modeling will enable the University to save money over the life of the building by selecting the most economical ways to save the most energy.

The Academic Village site is south of the intramural fields on the main campus.

A Master Plan

Colorado State and Iowa State are proposing to capitalize on their construction education strengths to develop a new master’s degree program in construction management. The distance-education program will also include a collaboration with the Associated General Contractors of America, one of the country’s largest constructions organizations.

“We’re linking the universities’ academic programs with AGC’s certificate programs, so that students can apply for credits toward a degree,” says Larry Grosse, head of Colorado State’s CM department. “Our goal is to implement the program in 2006.”

New Green Building Certificate Program

New in 2005 is the CM department’s 12-week Green Building Certificate Program, an accelerated evening program providing critical knowledge about emerging practices in commercial and residential building. Registrants for this popular program may take it at either the Denver Center or the main Colorado State campus in Fort Collins.

For more information, contact Gailmarie Kimmel at (970) 491-3260 or gmkimmel@cahs.colostate.edu or visit www.ibe.colostate.edu.

Popular Certificate Programs

Certificate programs provide an easy way for CM professionals to enhance their current careers or prepare for a new career. Current CM certificate programs offered at Colorado State University’s Denver Center are:

• Construction Management

• Financial Management for Constructors

• Advanced Estimating

For more information on any of the above CM certificate programs, or to register, call Kate Pennella, (303) 376-2605, or visit http://www.learn.colostate.edu/certificates/

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