Lawrence Tech promotes green architecture

Lawrence Technological University’s Center for Sustainability was created 1-½ years ago in order to “create educational opportunities in our curriculum associated with the topic of sustainability,” says its director Joseph Veryser. Veryser, who is also the associate dean of LTU’s College of Architecture and Design, has been involved with the development of such curriculum and the implementation of “green” architecture in university construction.

The university’s quadrangle, once a grass and concrete rectangle, is now a landscaped space lit gently at night by solar-powered columns. A main focus of the quad is a bioswale, an oval-shaped area designed to capture rainwater runoff. The roots of the bioswale’s plants not only limit runoff, but also filter water prior to its outlet to the Rouge River. LTU has also announced its plans to plant the quad and elsewhere around campus with 30-70 Champion trees—so called because they are cloned from the nation’s oldest and largest trees.

The school’s newest building, the A. Alfred Taubman Student Services Center, boasts a 10,000 square-foot green roof, geothermal heating, and utilizes wood such as bamboo—which can replenish itself in as quickly as six weeks. The roots of the sedum planted on the filters any rainwater that is not evaporated back into the atmosphere is filtered by the roof’s sedum roots before running into the Rouge River. Some of the water, however, is captured in a cistern so that it can be used to flush the building’s toilets.

The green roof is being used in a study directed by engineering professor Dr. Don Carpenter in which rainwater quality is measured and compared to the quality of water after being filtered by the green roof. Water run-off from two other conventional roofs at the university—one that is asphalt, one that is aggregate-covered asphalt—will also be compared in the study.

Other examples of sustainability in the classroom at LTU include the development of a cross-disciplinary junior-level elective that will look at the policy, politics and sociology of sustainability. In the College of Architecture and Design, one of every student’s required eight semesters of design “focuses entirely on sustainability,” says Veryser. The college also offers a certificate program in sustainability for architects “that have their degrees and want to get a specialization.”

An aspect of the center that Veryser sees as of the utmost importance is its cross-disciplinary nature. He likens the individual colleges to silos and that rarely interact. But the Center for Sustainability involves all four of the university’s colleges, necessary because “sustainability is such a broad topic.”
 
Source: Joseph Veryser, LTU
Writer: Kelli B. Kavanaugh