Morken Center earns LEED gold
July 22, 2006
PLU received word last week that the Morken Center for Learning and Technology reached gold-level certification in the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.
The gold-level rating has been achieved by only a small handful of public works projects in the state of Washington, and only one other university, The Evergreen State College in Olympia, has a LEED gold building. The Morken Center is the first “gold” project in Pierce County.
“This is the icing on the cake,” said Dave Kohler, director of facilities management, who closely oversaw the construction of the Morken Center. “Throughout the design and construction process, we planned carefully to make Morken one of the most environmentally friendly buildings in the Pacific Northwest, and the efforts of the entire PLU team paid off.”
One of those design considerations was giving virtually every room in the building – both interior and exterior – access to natural light. The fact that natural light floods so much of the building was among dozens of factors in the building’s certification.
More important in the certification process is the fact that the Morken Center requires no fossil fuels to operate. It is heated and cooled with a cutting-edge geothermal heat-pump system that regulates the building’s temperature with water stored in 85 underground wells.
Other features that contributed to the building’s certification include: over 90 percent of the construction waste was recycled; concrete floors require no chemical cleaning products or waxes; waterless urinals in the men’s bathrooms save thousands of gallons of water per year; and stainless steel siding and roof tiles are long-lasting and “heat neutral,” meaning they don’t create islands of sweltering heat over the building like traditional blacktopped roofs.
The council was established in 1993 to provide a consistent, measurable system of certification for green buildings. The LEED program evaluates buildings in five areas: sustainable sites; water efficiency; energy and atmosphere; materials and resources; and indoor environmental quality. Within these credit areas, points are available. The number of points a project earns determines the level of certification the building will be awarded. There are four progressive levels of certification: certified, silver, gold and platinum. Gold is the highest level any project in Washington state has reached.
The Morken Center is home to PLU’s School of Business, Department of Mathematics and Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering. To learn more about the building’s sustainable features, click here.
“This is the icing on the cake,” said Dave Kohler, director of facilities management, who closely oversaw the construction of the Morken Center. “Throughout the design and construction process, we planned carefully to make Morken one of the most environmentally friendly buildings in the Pacific Northwest, and the efforts of the entire PLU team paid off.”
One of those design considerations was giving virtually every room in the building – both interior and exterior – access to natural light. The fact that natural light floods so much of the building was among dozens of factors in the building’s certification.
More important in the certification process is the fact that the Morken Center requires no fossil fuels to operate. It is heated and cooled with a cutting-edge geothermal heat-pump system that regulates the building’s temperature with water stored in 85 underground wells.
Other features that contributed to the building’s certification include: over 90 percent of the construction waste was recycled; concrete floors require no chemical cleaning products or waxes; waterless urinals in the men’s bathrooms save thousands of gallons of water per year; and stainless steel siding and roof tiles are long-lasting and “heat neutral,” meaning they don’t create islands of sweltering heat over the building like traditional blacktopped roofs.
The council was established in 1993 to provide a consistent, measurable system of certification for green buildings. The LEED program evaluates buildings in five areas: sustainable sites; water efficiency; energy and atmosphere; materials and resources; and indoor environmental quality. Within these credit areas, points are available. The number of points a project earns determines the level of certification the building will be awarded. There are four progressive levels of certification: certified, silver, gold and platinum. Gold is the highest level any project in Washington state has reached.
The Morken Center is home to PLU’s School of Business, Department of Mathematics and Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering. To learn more about the building’s sustainable features, click here.