Here's the story from the paper about the College of the Desert's West valley campus:
The toilets will be waterless. The windows will have weather sensors that tell students when to open them.
And solar panels on the buildings and parking structures will produce a surplus of power that College of the Desert's new West Valley campus in Palm Springs will be able sell to support its academic programs.
The master plan for the 119-acre project unveiled for the COD Board of Trustees on Friday calls for the campus to be “net-zero plus” meaning better than net-zero electric and water use, campus waste and greenhouse gas emissions. While many community colleges in California have launched green and solar programs, COD's Edwin Deas, vice president for Business, said the West Valley campus could be the “first example of an integrated (sustainable) campus being built from scratch.”
The plan, presented by Lance O'Donnell of o2 Architecture in Palm Springs and James Matson of Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc. of Santa Monica, will eventually put a greenbelt of academic buildings, green business incubators, residential and small retail spaces on the site, all grouped around a central path or arroyo. “We see deeply shaded courtyards. We see indoor-outdoor teaching opportunities,” O'Donnell said. “You'll see solar on roofs. The modular cooling plant won't be sequestered away; it will be a teaching opportunity. We're not just looking at technology we have today; we're looking at technologies that are incubated here on site.”
The first phase of construction, to be completed by fall of 2014, will include classrooms for culinary arts and green technology programs, as well as a small library, fitness center and bookstore. The $40 million price tag for the first buildings will be funded from COD's $346.5 million construction bond money, Deas said.Construction of the first phase could create about 200-250 jobs, O'Donnell said, and when completed should provide class space for about 200-250 students. But, Deas said, complete build-out of the campus will depend on public-private partnerships and could take decades.
The master plan calls for five phases of construction, with buildings totaling 650,000 square feet and more than 2,600 parking spaces. Later phases will add more classrooms expanding hospitality and green tech programs and adding health sciences and media and arts programs, student housing and even, in the fourth phase, a boutique hotel.
Besides providing jobs for students in culinary and hospitality classes, the hotel “could be a cool hub for academic activity you don't see at community colleges,” O'Donnell said. “You could have a world symposium on solar and wind.”
Michael O'Neill, the trustee for Palm Springs, called the plan “extremely creative.”
“It's going to be an incredible boost to the local economy,” he said. “It will be attractive for people to move into Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs. You can see families moving in with children.”
Palm Springs acquired the site at the intersection of Indian Canyon Drive and Tramview Road from the the Bureau of Land Management for COD and signed it over to the college earlier this year.
The west side of the site is being developed by Southern California Edison as a 10 megawatt solar farm, which will also provide revenue for the campus. Still, O'Donnell said, getting to net-zero and beyond will be a challenge.
“We said let's allocate the portion of the budget that will make sure we're zero,” he said. “Then with good design and beating the bushes, getting manufacturers to use the campus as a test site, we can add the bells and whistles.”
Wind: The West Valley campus location — at the wind-swept north end of Palm Springs — was one of the biggest challenges facing the design team. To cut down on wind-blown sand, the north side of campus will have a series of built-in windbreaks, including man-made dunes topped with desert plants.
The parking structures and buildings on the north side of the site will be set perpendicular to the wind and will be use perforated, diaphanous materials, O'Donnell l said, so as not to create wind tunnels or eddies.
Electricity: The first phase of campus construction will include a 3.5 megawatt solar field that should pump out enough electricity to run the campus as well as surplus power to sell. As more buildings are completed, the field itself be cut back and panels moved to roof and parking structures.
And as solar technology improves over time, newer, more efficient panels can be installed, O'Donnell said. Charging stations for electric vehicles might also be solar-powered, he said. Dry waste from the waterless toilets, similar to the ones used on commercial air liners, could also eventually been used for a waste-to-power biomass system, he said.
Water: The goal is to keep water use on campus between 1 million and 1.2 million gallons a year — which is the same amount many golf courses in the valley use daily, O'Donnell said. Capturing onsite storm water and other waste water will cut water use, along with the waterless toilets and a high-tech cooling tower for recycling water from the air conditioning and heating systems.
Buildings: Buildings will be designed to minimize the need for electricity and greenhouse gas emissions. “Not having a pile of wood is the first order of business,” O'Donnell said.
Miss Penny Lane says: When can she sign up for class?
1 comment:
Very exciting. Thanks for posting this news.
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