Use of natural light from the large windows in the new environmentally friendly dorm saves enough electricity in one year to light Martin Stadium for 233 hours straight. This “green” fact is one of several artfully displayed on the walls throughout the new Olympia Avenue dormitory at WSU. The dorm’s fresh, exposed interior highlights the different energy-saving components it offers, including a geo-thermal heating and cooling system, water-saving toilets and showers, reused wood, a gas fireplace, indoor bicycle storage, and carpet and furniture made from renewable and recycled materials.
The Olympia is the first of seven environmentally sustainable dorms WSU will build over the next four years. The popular dorm received more than
twice as many residence applications than its 229 beds could accommodate—before it even opened in August 2009.Junior Anthony Smith, 20, The Olympia hall president, applied for his room back in March 2009.
“I got a double with a full bath,” Smith said. “I lived in Gannon-Golds for two years and then I switched over here—[this is a] HUGE difference.”
WSU President Floyd decided freshmen needed higher-quality stays, after he surveyed the living environment when he came to WSU, according to WSU Vice President of Economic Development and Global Engagement John Gardner.
“President Floyd wanted to upgrade the quality of life for new students,” Gardner said.According to the WSU Sustainability Initiative, President Floyd appointed the Sustainability and Environment Committee, to provide leadership and guidance in “planning, development, organization, and implementation of the programs supporting the [Initiative].
“[WSU] Facilities and Operations will try to put in place a continued renovation of everything,” Gardner said.
He said affordability and the kind of living a building will offer should be illustrated and exemplified in how each new building is constructed and operated.
Sustainability means “leaving it there for the next generation,” Karl Englund, assistant research professor for the Composite Materials and Engineering Center said. “It’s about minimizing effect and utilizing materials correctly and wisely.”Englund said planners need to assess consumption and design when evaluating whether to revamp an old structure or build one from scratch. He said cost is not just financial—it includes the energy used to create new building materials and dispose of old ones.
“There is a lot more to it than the bricks and the plywood and stuff,” Englund said. “The energy that goes into creating a zero energy house from scratch will take 18-20 years to balance out.”
Reusing old materials and products is one way to save the energy costs of recycling. WSU Capital Planning and Development wanted to involve students in the dorm project, according to Robert Barnstone, associate professor at the School of Architecture and Construction Management. Barnstone’s specialty is in efficient and sustainable recycled materials development.
“We wanted to be able to do something for the building that was unique and sustainable,” Barnstone said.
Capital Planning held a student contest to design something sustainable for the new dorm, and his students won, he said. 
Students Josh Lafreniere and Dan Blohowiak designed and built a conference table out of reused materials for the dorm’s community room on the ground floor. “They designed it fairly quickly,” Barnstone said. “But building it took almost a whole semester.” The students used glue-lams (laminated support beams) for the table top, and scrap metal and a piece of electrical conduit (pipe) for the base.
“It’s fair to say that any building that we build or renovate has these [sustainability] dimensions in mind,” Gardner said.
The Compton Union buildin
g that opened in fall 2008 is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified and Olympia Avenue is registered for a LEED certification.“The new dorm is likely to receive the silver rating,” Gardner said.
Everything we do has a consequence,” Englund said about sustainability methods, consumption, and ecological footprints. “We just have to be aware [of] the butterfly effect.”
Buildings on campus were generally built with the most sustainable technology available at the time, according to Gardner, and many of the buildings on campus have been retrofitted with energy-saving technologies.
“How they are implemented and where, will depend on their use and economic sustainability,” Gardner said. “
Those decisions are made with every new structure and every new renovation.”Sources:
Anthony Smith anthony.smith@email.wsu.edu
Karl Englund englund@wsu.edu
John Gardner gardnerj@wsu.edu
Robert Barnstone 509-335-8196
WSU Sustainability Initiative
Sustainability and Environment Committee
