Green 101

Yale Chases Leading Edge of Sustainable Design

by Katherine S. Robertson

The green design and construction focus at Yale University was evident seven years ago when it began planning buildings to earn Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design status while the certification program was still in its infancy.

Today, the Ivy League school in New Haven, Conn., is keeping pace with that early focus through a dedicated Office of Sustainability; an effort to apply cutting-edge green systems that aim for carbon emission reduction, energy conservation, and efficient stormwater management; and its plans to break ground this year on a new platinum-level LEED building.

In 2004, Yale tapped Julie Newman as the first director of a new Office of Sustainability. Last year, that office created a building and design committee that is developing a proposed set of campuswide guidelines and standards for sustainable design and construction.

The new standards could get wide use. Yale has been averaging $250 million in capital construction a year on its sprawling 900-acre campus. The university also is working on $300 million residential renovation and $500 million science facility upgrade programs, says David Spalding, program manager for construction in the school’s facilities department.

Yale is integrating LEED principles into more than a dozen projects under way on campus.

“We have incorporated LEED silver into our design standards,” Newman says. “The new ones will be more aggressive and reflect Yale’s commitment to sustainability. It’s no longer cutting edge to do LEED Silver.”

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Achieving platinum status would follow a progression that Yale began in 2000, when LEED was new and the U.S. Green Building Council was still ironing out kinks in the system. The university used the LEED program various times, most recently earning certification for two new buildings that opened in 2005 – a 105,000-gross-sq-ft engineering building that earned silver-level status and a 65,000-sq-ft chemistry building that earned gold.

The new forestry and environmental studies building may end up being a flagship of sorts. It incorporates a range of environmental objectives, including renewable energy, energy efficiency, climate neutrality, and minimal pollution.

Planned to be built 20 ft into rock on a hillside on the north end of campus, the new stone, glass, and concrete building will have three stories above grade, capped with a system of photovoltaic panels. In addition to using solar power to heat its hot water, the building is positioned to maximize natural light and shading.

 The building will also have geothermal heat pumps tapping four 1,500-ft-deep wells that will act as a thermal battery, using the temperature of subsurface water to heat or cool air.