Ecological Renovations at Berea College
Administrative Buildings
During the 2008-2009 academic year, Berea College completed a full renovation of its Boone Tavern Hotel and Restaurant with the goal of becoming the first LEED-certified hotel in the state. As part of the renovation planning for Boone Tavern, an architectural firm convened a 2-day charrette with relevant campus representatives. The four primary guiding themes that participants explored were service, cuisine, sustainability, and crafts.
Some of the green operations at Boone Tavern include energy-efficient fixtures, the use of green cleaning supplies, and incorporation of Kentucky Proud foods in the restaurant.
Explore the USGBC Profile PDF.
Berea’s Central Plant, which replaced its old coal-fired heat plant in 2006, eliminated the annual use of about 4,000 pounds of coal. The Central Plant burns natural gas, with fuel oil as a back-up, and uses special insulated pipe that has helped reduce the energy loss in transfer from about 30% to less than 5%. The new system also reduced Berea’s gas use by 39% in the first year alone.
The Central Plant has significantly reduced the amount of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions compared to the coal-fired heat plant. The Central Plant was also built to accommodate the possibility of future retrofitting it for co-generation of electricity by capturing the surplus heat.
Draper Hall was constructed in 1937 and modeled after Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The building’s renovation, which was one of the first major green building projects on campus, was completed in 2002. Draper is the largest academic building on campus and houses five academic departments, the Center for Learning, Teaching, Communication and Research, and the Campus Christian Center.
The renovation doubled the number of offices and creation of spaces for whole-class activities, small group projects, individual learning, and one-on-one conversations. Draper’s green building features include comprehensive recycling stations on every floor, an atrium for daylighting/ventilation, occupancy sensors for lights, ceiling fans, low-flow toilets, and rainfall collection for flushing toilets in the building.
Explore the Draper Fact Sheet (PDF).
Explore the Draper Green Steps Signage.
The Ecovillage is an ecologically-sustainable residential and learning complex designed to meet housing needs for student families, childcare for campus children, and provide a living/labor opportunity for students interested in sustainability. The complex includes 50 apartments, a state-of-the-art Child Development Laboratory (CDL), a Commons House, and a Sustainability and Environmental Studies (SENS) demonstration house.
Key features of the Ecovillage apartments include solar tubes and compact fluorescent lighting, low-flow toilets and showerheads, low-VOC carpets and paints, ceiling fans, and outdoor clotheslines for drying clothes. In additional to individual garden plots for each apartment, the Ecovillage also includes several raised garden beds and a permaculture “food forest” for all residents’ use.
The SENS House includes additional features such as a timber frame from College-harvested wood, natural building techniques, a composting toilet, and a net-metering solar electric system. The community’s sewage is converted to swimmable quality water by an “ecological machine,” which is composed of a series of tanks filled with plants, fish, and other aquaculture. Much of this water is recycled to flush toilets in the Ecovillage. The sustainability goals of the Ecovillage include reducing energy use by 75%, reducing per capita water use by 75%, and reusing or composting at least 50% of waste.
Regular Ecovillage tours are offered on Thursdays at 1:00 p.m. and Saturdays at 10:00 a.m. Please contact the Ecovillage Coordinator to RSVP for scheduled tours.
Document Resources:
Learn more at this link: https://www.usgbc.org/projects/lincoln-hall-renovation
Learn more at this link: https://www.usgbc.org/projects/berea-college-knapp-hall-renovation
Berea College Science Building Gains LEED Green Building Gold and FSC Certifications
Berea College announced that the newly-built Margaret A. Cargill Natural Sciences and Health Building (MAC) has been awarded Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold certification and full project certification by the Forest Stewardship Council.
The LEED rating system was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to assess and recognize buildings, homes and communities that are designed, constructed, maintained and operated for improved environmental and human-health performance. The Forest Stewardship Council, which promotes environmentally sound, socially beneficial and economically prosperous management of forests worldwide, certified the full project.
“Gaining LEED Gold is no easy task to accomplish with any building, much less one as large and complex as the MAC,” said Derrick Singleton, vice president of operations and sustainability at Berea College. “This building continues to support Berea’s mission to promote an environmentally safe and sustainable way of life.”
Berea College achieved LEED certification for implementing practical and measurable strategies and solutions aimed at achieving high performance in sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.
“We also received the Forest Stewardship Council’s Full Project Certification for the MAC,” said Richard Dodd, LEED AP, director of Project Management at Berea College. “This certification requires a full audit of all wood products used in construction and verified to have been sourced with ecological responsibility.”
“This makes Berea home to five of eight such FSC certified projects in the U.S. and one of only 85 worldwide. These are testaments of our efforts to ‘tread softly’ on the environment while still making big impacts,” Dodd continued.
LEED promotes environmentally- and socially-responsible construction and operation of green buildings in order to improve quality of life. Berea College had both the first LEED-certified building in Kentucky (Lincoln Hall, the College’s administration building) and the first LEED certified hotel (Historic Boone Tavern Hotel and Restaurant). Berea’s campus is also home to several LEED certified residence halls.
“Achieving LEED certification is more than implementing sustainable practices. It represents a commitment to making the world a better place and influencing others to do better,” said Mahesh Ramanujam, president and CEO, USGBC. “Given the extraordinary importance of climate protection and the central role of the building industry in that effort, Berea College demonstrates their leadership through their LEED certification of The Margaret A. Cargill Natural Sciences and Health project.
Residence Halls
Learn more at this link: https://www.usgbc.org/projects/berea-college-anna-smith-hall
Learn more at this link: https://www.usgbc.org/projects/berea-dana-hall
Learn more at this link: https://www.usgbc.org/projects/berea-college-bingham-hall
Learn more at this link: https://www.usgbc.org/projects/berea-college-kettering-hall?view=overview