Radical Design Paradigms For Sustainable Construction at Kalamazoo College
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Authors
Smith, Adam
Issue Date
2010
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
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Abstract
In June 2007 Kalamazoo College committed to pursue carbon neutrality by signing the American
Colleges and Universities Presidential Climate Commitment. In November 2008 the College conducted a
greenhouse gas inventory which found that 10,666.4 tons C02 equivalent, representing 74.6% of the
College's total emissions were attributable to electricity consumption and on-campus combustion for
heating and domestic hot water. This suggests that the major barrier to carbon neutrality for the College is
the built environment (Kalamazoo College, 2010). Of all the buildings on campus, Hoben Hall has gone
the longest without a major renovation, fully 74 years. That is an extreme case, but an ideal lifespan for a
construction project is still 30-40 years and even an aggressive renovation schedule would take 40-50
years to reach all of the major campus buildings (Man strom , 2010). This suggests that an incremental
approach to improvements in building energy efficiency is not an option if carbon neutrality in our
lifetime is the goal. Rather, I propose that the time has come for a radical approach. The goal of every
project should be to produce the most energy efficient building possible. Each project will be a learning
process and will enable an even higher efficiency to be achieved in the next building.
Radical efficiency improvements will require a paradigm shift in design, construction and
operations practices. This paper will open with a discussion of current green building standards and an
overview of efficiency measures which have already been undertaken on campus. I will argue that the
current approach has value but does not go far enough, eventually introducing several techniques which
would enable the College to reach new levels of building efficiency. Those will then be applied to a case
study so that their effect and life cycle cost may be reliably evaluated against "best practices" design. The
case study will put forward an alternative design for the Upjohn Library Commons as currently
constructed. This case study is particularly attractive because the library is the second most efficient
building on campus thanks to its recent renovation. It is also typical of campus buildings in its scale, use
and orientation. That suggests that any efficiency gains achieved in the model may be safely applied as
guidelines elsewhere on campus.
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47 p.
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