New WWU Academic Instructional Center has innovative green features

Photo by Matthew Anderson | WWU

The Academic Instructional Center.

BELLINGHAM - Western Washington University's new Academic Instructional Center (AIC), designed to meet Western's growing need for classroom, laboratory and office space, opened Jan. 6 with the start of winter quarter.

The 120,000-square-foot facility includes a number of "green building" concepts such as solar shading, natural ventilation and heat recovery, energy and water efficiency, onsite use of excavated materials and the recycling of construction waste. The University has applied for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) designation for the AIC.

"Western's long and distinguished history of leadership with sustainability continues with the Academic Instructional Center," said Western President Bruce Shepard.

The new $50 million building, funded by the Washington State Legislature, consists of two wings joined by a skywalk on the fourth floor. The east wing houses departmental clinics, labs and faculty offices; the west wing includes classrooms, lecture halls and open collaborative spaces to encourage faculty-student interaction. The new building accommodates the consolidation and growth of the departments of Psychology and Communication Sciences and Disorders and provides needed general university classrooms, lecture halls and computer labs.

Gil Aiken, WWU project manager, said that the project has sustainability based features, including:

• Natural ventilation through portions of the building via passive means. Instead of relying on air conditioning, ventilation hoods, noise-producing fans and other mechanical devices, natural ventilation allows the physics of air movement to moderate temperatures within the building. The natural ventilation system uses operable windows, trickle vents, radiant panels, ceiling fans and cloud ceilings to increase energy efficiency and maintain excellent indoor air quality.
• Perimeter openings in acoustic tile ceilings, which allow air to circulate against the thermal mass of building concrete to moderate interior temperatures.
• Passive solar shading, using louvers along the exterior of the building that help control building temperature changes during the day.
• Heating water, controlled by the building monitoring system, which flows through radiant panels to heat offices and classrooms.
• Water-saving dual-flush toilets.
• Energy-saving occupancy sensors installed in offices and classrooms that turn lights off if they don't detect room occupants for a set period of time.
• Use of improved construction adhesives and materials that reduce off-gassing of harmful chemicals.

In addition to the many green features, the building also was located on the south end of campus, near convenient parking, in order to be more accessible for the public to attend counseling offered through the Psychology Department and the Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic offered through the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

The project was designed by NAC Architecture, Seattle, in association with Opsis Architecture, Portland. The general contractor was Dawson Construction of Bellingham.