University of Idaho Wins GBI-sponsored Student Design Award

A team from the University of Idaho is this year's winner of the GBI-sponsored award in the US EPA's People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) Student Design Competition.

	Construction detail of a proposed straw bale dorm cabin by Paul Marx. Click here to enlarge the photo

The winning project is a prototype branch campus plan for upgrading the University's McCall, Idaho field campus. The goal is to develop a sustainable, carbon neutral campus that will serve as an environmental education facility, fully demonstrating green building approaches and serving as a model and resource for the State of Idaho as proposed sustainability laws, regulations and standards move forward in the next few years.

According to the abstract, "the project seeks to capitalize on the plethora of recent advances in green technology in order to pioneer a built environment that seamlessly weaves together green concepts in energy efficiency, building and finish materials, space planning and use, water treatment, and site construction with an emphasis on using the built environment as a model and teaching tool for applied sustainability.

"University of Idaho (UI) graduate and undergraduate students specializing in architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, bioregional planning, conservation social sciences, and interior design will work in interdisciplinary teams with the Ponderosa Institute staff to plan and design a carbon-neutral environmental learning center at the UI McCall field campus. Selected students will then partner with industry professionals to synthesize and implement a facilities plan for the field campus.

"As Idaho's only environmental learning center, the resulting facilities will be uniquely poised to showcase sustainability in a state that is expected to experience a 50% rise in population in the next three decades, but which lacks the necessary models for sustainable growth to facilitate such an increase without compromising environmental quality. Over a thousand visitors each year will participate in programs that use the field campus architecture as pedagogy. This student, faculty and industry partnership will be the first such team to take up the carbon-neutral challenge in a comprehensive and applied fashion."

GBI presented the University of Idaho team—which includes Rula Awwad-Rafferty, Jacob Dolence, Stephen Drown, Bruce T. Haglund, Steven Hollenhorst, Jen Kulgren, Hana Persson, Lauriel Schuman, Crystal van Horn, and Lynne Westerfield—with a check for $1,000 to assist in funding this important project.