by Avery Yale Kamila
Published in SOSUpdate
(April 2003) The oldest public university in the country is undergoing some
significant changes. Most notably, the UNC-Chapel Hill campus will soon gain 5.9
million square feet of new buildings and 8,400 new students and employees.
Last year the university adopted a master plan that will guide all development
decisions during this period of growth and transformation. To help carry out the
goals of the plan, the university hired a Sustainability Coordinator, a Transportation
Demand Management Coordinator, a Historic Preservation Architect and a Landscape
Architect.
According to Cindy Pollock Shea, UNC’s Sustainability Coordinator, the plan relies
on smart growth principles such as infilling new buildings in already developed areas,
creating more green space and encouraging pedestrians instead of cars.
"In one part of the plan," explains Ms. Shea. "We have taken away twenty acres
of surface parking and replaced it with ten acres of green space and ten acres of
new buildings, that include parking decks."
The plan also calls for more student housing on campus, a decrease in
single-occupancy vehicles and the creation of a more connected and pedestrian-friendly
environment in the area that stretches from the medical campus to the Dean Smith
Center.
The university is using porous concrete on new parking lots, placing cisterns
under playing fields and plans to add green roofs to the School of Nursing
Carrington addition and the Ramshead complex. Green roofs are capped with soil
and plant matter to help control stormwater runoff, improve the energy efficiency
of the building and increase the lifespan of the roof by reducing its exposure to
UV rays.
Two years ago, the North Carolina legislature passed legislation mandating
that any state building over 20,000 square feet perform a life-cycle cost
analysis before construction begins. This analysis, which is reviewed by
the state Construction Office, projects the cost of operating and maintaining
a building over a thirty-year period.
As a result of this analysis, UNC-Chapel Hill plans to construct two high
performance buildings as a pilot project. These buildings, the Morrison
Dormitory renovation and the Global and International Studies building, will
incorporate green construction techniques, such as day lighting and super-efficient
electrical, air handling and plumbing systems that reduce the buildings’ long-term
operating costs.
According to Ms. Shea, this type of building philosophy takes advantage of
synergies to reduce costs. "For example," she says. "When you incorporate
day lighting into a building you need fewer lights, which generate less heat,
and therefore the building requires a smaller cooling system."
The university anticipates that all the construction will be complete by
2010 at a cost of $1.1 billion.
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