October 1, 2010

LEED platinum for Bastyr

Image courtesy CollinsWoerman/Lara Swimmer [enlarge]

A cottage-style housing village at Bastyr University received LEED for homes platinum. Bastyr said in a press release that this is the first student housing project on the West Coast to achieve this designation.

The village has 11 three-story cottages, each with living space for 12 students in about 4,600 square feet. Units have communal living areas with a kitchen, great room, laundry and dining area that can also be used for quiet study. The whole complex houses 132 students for the natural health arts and sciences university in Kenmore.

The village was designed by CollinsWoerman. Schuchart was the general contractor. O'Brien and Co. managed the certification process.

Arlan Collins, principal at CollinsWoerman, said the residences convey the school's mission of sustainable living. “The project is distinguished not only by the integrated design process and significant collaborative work that advanced the green agenda, but also by the fact that (the) village truly reflects the values and vision of the institution it serves.”

One important goal of the project was to eliminate unnecessary space. Having free-standing structures meant corridors, multiple stairwells and elevators were not needed. The smaller living units were less costly to build than a traditional university residence hall, and will be cheaper to operate, the school said.

Cottages are arranged around outdoor courtyards connected by walkways and native landscaping. There is a permaculture teaching garden with edible and medicinal plants that are incorporated into the curriculum. More than 122 new trees and 1,900 new shrubs and plants were added to the landscape.

An on-site system captures rainwater from the cottages' “butterfly roofs” and drains to a reservoir the size of an Olympic swimming pool beneath a nearby parking lot. Water is slow released into a wetland.

Four of the cottages will receive green roofs this month.

Special care was taken to minimize impacts on the 51-acre campus, including preserving a cluster of evergreen trees, and leaving nearby wooded areas and wetlands undisturbed.

Cottages have radiant floor heat, high-efficiency gas boilers and water heaters, heat recovery, natural ventilation and high-efficiency lighting. Locally harvested and processed lumber was used for exterior and interior framing and sheathing, and building materials include local and urea formaldehyde-free cabinets, no- and low-VOC paints and Eco-Batt Insulation.

Construction cost $12 million, and the total budget was $16.5 million.