http://blogs.furman.edu/com221sp09c/2009/04/14/sustainable-or-stylish/ Com Studies 221, Spring 2009 Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:20:52 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://blogs.furman.edu/com221sp09c/2009/04/14/sustainable-or-stylish/comment-page-1/#comment-34 cgarber Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:58:53 +0000 http://blogs.furman.edu/com221sp09c/?p=341#comment-34 To respond to your article I began to think of the different measures college universities have taken to construct sustainable and environmentally friendly buildings. Even Furman University has built Cliffs Cottage, a building designed along LEED guidelines. However, when many universities think sustainable, they also think ugly and EXPENSIVE. However, when we look abroad we see this is not the case. Take Cornell University, for example. They have built a campus abroad in the Middle Eastern country of Qatar. They constructed a medical college that not only employs state of the art technology, but eco-architecture principles. To adjust to the climate, energy efficiency was a major factor influencing the design. A double wall protects the building from the extreme heat. The outer walls, made of glass fiber reinforced concrete panels, are designed to absorb heat. A three-foot gap separates this outer wall from the inner insulated wall. In the courtyards, three 80 foot tall wind towers, also called badgirs, are used to direct cool breezes inside the building. These structures were a traditional means of cooling houses in the Gulf. Beyond that, the campus is beautiful, and still retains much of the design concepts associated with middle eastern architecture. Through the means of intelligent design, eco-friendly production, and globalization, architecture has proven to be both visually and economically valuable. http://www.sustainablecampus.cornell.edu/greenbuildings/weillmedicalcollege.cfm To respond to your article I began to think of the different measures college universities have taken to construct sustainable and environmentally friendly buildings. Even Furman University has built Cliffs Cottage, a building designed along LEED guidelines. However, when many universities think sustainable, they also think ugly and EXPENSIVE. However, when we look abroad we see this is not the case. Take Cornell University, for example. They have built a campus abroad in the Middle Eastern country of Qatar. They constructed a medical college that not only employs state of the art technology, but eco-architecture principles. To adjust to the climate,
energy efficiency was a major factor influencing the design. A double wall protects the building from the extreme heat. The outer walls, made of glass fiber reinforced concrete panels, are designed to absorb heat. A three-foot gap separates this outer wall from the inner insulated wall. In the courtyards, three 80 foot tall wind towers, also called badgirs, are used to direct cool breezes inside the building. These structures were a traditional means of cooling houses in the Gulf. Beyond that, the campus is beautiful, and still retains much of the design concepts associated with middle eastern architecture. Through the means of intelligent design, eco-friendly production, and globalization, architecture has proven to be both visually and economically valuable.
http://www.sustainablecampus.cornell.edu/greenbuildings/weillmedicalcollege.cfm

]]>