8/13/2009

Rice Children's Campus first university building certified for environmental friendliness

BY JENNIFER EVANS
Rice News staff

While the traditional first anniversary gift is paper, the Rice Children's Campus has received silver.

Just shy of a year old, the university's early learning facility for children of Rice faculty, staff and students has been awarded silver certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, an internationally recognized green standard for buildings.


	The Rice Children's Campus is the university's first building to earn LEED certification, and it is the only child care center with infant care in Houston to have a LEED rating.

The Rice Children's Campus (RCC) is the university's first building to earn LEED certification, and it is the only child care center with infant care in Houston to have a LEED rating.

“From the very beginning, we approached every aspect of this project by asking ourselves what is best for the children of the Rice community, including for our environmental strategy,” said Richard Johnson, director of sustainability at Rice. “We were amazed to find in our early research that so few child care facilities in the U.S. had achieved LEED certification when so many decisions about a building’s design and operations can directly impact the health and well-being of its occupants, especially children.”

"This certification further demonstrates Rice's commitment to sustainability practices and the deep integration of sustainable values into our university culture," said Barbara White Bryson, associate vice president for Facilities, Engineering and Planning. "It is a pleasure to receive this tangible acknowledgement aligning with Rice's sustainability commitment, and it is especially significant to have our first LEED-certified building be the building where we care for Rice's children."

Children's Campus
Want to enroll your child at the Rice Children's Campus? Learn how Going green
Rice Children's Campus boasts energy-efficient features In 2006, Bryson announced the university's commitment to constructing all new buildings on the Rice campus according to LEED standards.

LEED is a voluntary program that provides third-party verification that a building was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving energy and water efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. To be LEED-certified, new buildings must comply with a number of green building standards, and they are awarded points for those they achieve. Buildings are certified in one of four categories, based on the number of points they earn -- certified (26-32), silver (33-38), gold (39-51) and platinum (52 or more).

Upon hearing the news of the RCC's silver rating, Joujou Zebdaoui, the project manager for the children's campus, exclaimed, "I feel like I'm on cloud nine -- actually, cloud 37," referring to the number of points the RCC earned.

Located one block west of campus on Chaucer Drive, the 9,750-square-foot building was designed with features that enable the facility to enjoy a 26 percent reduction in energy consumption over buildings that are built only to code, saving Rice almost $4,000 per year.

Among the energy-, resource- and cost-saving highlights are light sensors, programmable thermostats, a self-monitoring mechanical system and double-paned windows. Dual-flush toilets, which allow users to select the water volume for each flush, and faucet aerators have reduced domestic water consumption at the RCC by more than 35 percent and saved approximately 25,000 gallons per year.

Another key design element is the extensive use of natural light. More than 90 percent of occupied spaces in the building have access to natural daylight and views to the outdoors, which have been shown to increase worker productivity and satisfaction while also enhancing learning, Johnson said.

The interior finishes of the RCC, including paint, adhesives and sealants, were carefully selected to meet strict standards for indoor air quality, Johnson said. In addition, Rice's innovative green cleaning program has been extended to the RCC, further ensuring that the building's interior will be both clean and healthy.

The RCC earned LEED points not just for the environmentally friendly amenities observable upon its completion, but also for sustainable practices throughout construction.

"From the very beginning of the project, the team sought to minimize the waste of materials whenever possible," Johnson said.

Zebdaoui is particularly proud of the use of reclaimed materials from the three old houses "deconstructed" rather than demolished to make way for the children's campus. About 10,000 bricks from those buildings were incorporated into the RCC's façade, creating a visual connection between the new facility and the existing buildings on the street while also saving about $10,000.

The idea came in part from three Rice students who have since graduated -- Jessica Coe '09, Myrth Killingsworth '08 and Ruth Samuelson '07. In 2007, they drafted a paper on local resources for construction and demolition waste reuse and recycling for their class Environmental Issues -- Rice Into the Future with an eye toward providing useful information for future Rice construction projects. Zebdaoui pursued several of the students' recommendations on the RCC project.

Over the entire project, 788,000 pounds of materials -- more than half of all the waste generated -- were diverted from the landfill and recycled or reused. In addition, more than 25 percent of the building’s materials (by cost) are composed of recycled materials, including structural steel and rebar, metal framing, gypsum wallboard and concrete. Approximately 17 percent of the building's materials (by cost) were manufactured within 500 miles of the RCC, thus reducing environmental impacts resulting from shipping building materials over long distances.

Perhaps one of the greatest successes of the project came about when the project team learned that the city of Houston would require the construction of a storm sewer line on Chaucer Street to accommodate the anticipated storm water runoff from the RCC. The contractor estimated that this storm sewer would cost about $280,000, which not only was a blow to the project's budget, it would have also required a significant disruption of traffic on the street. The project team asked the city if it would waive the requirement for the storm sewer line if storm water runoff from the site after construction was less than before construction. The city agreed. The project team then designed an 8,000-gallon underground cistern -- a rain tank -- to capture rainwater from the roof of the building, which would then be used to irrigate the landscaping. This innovative solution, which cost approximately $50,000, saved $230,000 in construction costs, prevented construction on a busy street and reduced overall storm water runoff and thus the threat of flooding in the area and downstream. In addition, with the tank harvesting approximately 233,000 gallons of rain every year, Rice will avoid more than $1,200 annually in water bills for irrigation, Johnson said.

"This certification is a terrific and satisfying reward for the hard work of the entire project team and for all the constituents of the RCC," Bryson said.

The RCC project team comprised Taft Architects, including Rice's own John Casbarian, dean of the Rice School of Architecture, and Danny Samuels, the Harry K. Smith Professor in the Practice of Architecture; contractor CBIC Construction and Development LLC; mechanical engineer and LEED consultant WSP Flack + Kurtz; civil engineer Walter P. Moore and Associates; landscape architect Land Effects; landscape contractor B & D Contractors Inc.; and structural engineer Matrix Structural Engineers.

For more information on the RCC, visit http://childrenscampus.rice.edu.