Note that some posts may be missing images because of changes to The Chronicle's Web site. Our apologies — Lawrence Biemiller and Scott Carlson

Peter W. Bardaglio (September 2008)

Pond Scum and Other Miracles of Science

Code Green for Higher Education?

Spending Endowment Money to Benefit All

Niles Barnes (November 2008)

Are American Colleges Living Labs for Renewable-Energy Use?

An Organic Farm Brings Agriculture and Architecture Together

Carbon Offsets Are Worth Considering

Putting Sustainability's Savings to Good Use

Steve Bellona (January 2009)

How to Help Sustainability Survive the Downturn

Justifying Energy-Saving Projects as Energy Prices Tumble

Education and Feedback Are Keys to Sustainability

Are Sustainability's Costs Prohibitive? No

Gina Crandell (April 2008)

Should an Arboretum Be a Wilderness or a Garden?

In Campus Design, Contrast Takes On Evenness

Is Your ...

Chilis (Alix Ingber photos)

July is payoff time at the Sweet Briar Community Garden. The tomatoes and peppers that we have been patiently tending are beginning to ripen, cucumbers and green beans abound, and all sorts of goodies signal the transition from spring greens to full summer delights. Squash bugs demolished my beautiful zucchini, but we do a lot of sharing at the garden, so I'm not feeling deprived. One gardener has been leaving piles of beautiful cucumbers in the pavilion for others to enjoy.

Those who planted their okra early are beginning to harvest them, and the edamame are also starting to ripen. One gardener has a couple of fully ripe ears of corn; the rest of us probably have a week or two to wait. There are a few small watermelons getting bigger by the day, and the winter squash is beginning to set fruit. The eggplant, as usual, is slow, but a few blossoms...

Rachel Ray, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and the Food Channel have had their effect on the eating habits of college students, helping inspire a push for local and organic food at colleges across the country. An article from the Associated Press notes that trend—and adds that more students are interested in cooking for themselves.

Student tastes have become more diverse, more sophisticated, and more international, the article says, if Sodexo's list of top campus foods for 2009 is any indication: It includes Vietnamese pho, mini-samosas, goat-cheese salad, and chicken mole. (A potential downside, from the local-food perspective: The more diverse the food options a college offers, the tougher it is to get a large proportion of the ingredients locally.)

Beyond the dining-hall doors, more residence halls feature kitchens, and some students invite chefs to teach cooking classes or gather together to...

Students at three Florida colleges are helping to collect 40,000 bottles, 40,000 cans, and 1,700 tires for a couple who are building an off-the-grid house out of recycled materials, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

The $300,000, 3,000-square-foot house will rely on solar panels for its electricity and will use methane from its sewage system to power kitchen appliances. Cisterns will collect rainwater, which will be used several ways—including to irrigate an indoor vegetable garden. The owners, Michael and Denise Pfalzer, hired as their architect Michael Reynolds, a New Mexico sustainable-building pioneer who has been designing so-called "earthship" homes for years.

The newspaper reports that the house, currently under construction, will resemble "an architectural blend of an adobe, a Hobbit hole, and a science-fiction home of the future."

Students at Eckerd College, the...

U. of Rochester students take advantage of a study area they helped design. (U. of Rochester photos)

One of the most popular articles The Chronicle has run in recent years was "An Anthropologist in the Library," which focused on the University of Rochester's renovation of a library's student area. Students helped design the space under the guidance of an anthropologist.

On a recent trip to Rochester, I stopped by the university to see Susan Gibbons, the dean of the library who oversaw the renovation, which was finished last fall. It's a colorful room, with funky Herman Miller furniture, and the sunshine streams in. (The addition of big windows was a major part of the renovation.) Unfortunately, the room was empty, this being summer break, so I couldn't see the students working in the space myself. I had to imagine the students as Ms. Gibbons walked around the room,...

The Sidney J. Watson Arena uses 17 percent less power than a conventional ice arena would. (Bowdoin College photos)

Despite all the refrigeration equipment needed to cover its floor with a 90-by-200-foot sheet of ice, Bowdoin College's new Sidney J. Watson Arena has earned LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, becoming the first LEED-certified new ice arena in the U.S.

The $20-million, 70,520-square-foot facility takes advantage of energy-saving technology that uses 17 percent less energy than would a conventional ice arena, according to Bowdoin officials. The arena won LEED points for a number of other features as well. A stormwater-management system collects rainwater and directs it to the local aquifer. Low-flow showers, faucets, toilets, and urinals are expected to use 38 percent less water than typical fixtures. Preferred parking spaces are reserved...

In my first post, I discussed why facilities professionals at colleges and universities need to be front and center in the sustainability process. Since approximately 80 percent of a college’s emissions are the result of physical-plant activities, the facilities manager’s role is crucial as a resource and expert on campus utilities, planning, and project management.

So how can facilities managers best serve the sustainability process? Facilities managers have what sustainability professionals need -- an organized and segmented list of campus projects with cost estimates. Not only do facilities managers have the list, but they also have knowledge and experience with project execution and sequencing that others do not. Assembling a project list is both an art and a science. Most assessments contain detailed project deficiencies for campus buildings and infrastructure, but need greater a...

A rocker designed by two Louisiana State U. students tied for second place in this year's Chair Affair. (Chronicle photographs by Lawrence Biemiller)

Washington — Maybe you never thought about buying cardboard furniture for your living room, not even after Frank Gehry came out with a line of it (his corrugated Wiggle Chair retails for $985, by the way, while his cardboard dinner table goes for — are you sitting? — $2,730). But it may be time to reconsider, to judge by the handsome chairs that architecture students entered in a biennial competition known as the Chair Affair.

The winning designs went on display Thursday morning at the National Building Museum. Two juries — one to make a first pass at the entries, the other to make the final selections — picked six winners from 170 submissions by more than 300 students at 49 institutions. Contest rules limited materials to...

Because of changes to The Chronicle's Web site, Buildings & Grounds has a new location, as well as a new look. But we will continue to provide the same daily coverage of campus architecture, facilities, and sustainability news.

Buildings & Grounds is now a feature of a new Facilities page within the site's Administration section. To make finding us easy, you might want to bookmark either the Buildings & Grounds page itself (http://chronicle.com/blog/Buildings-Grounds/4/) or the Facilities page (http://chronicle.com/topic/Facilities/117/).

Note that, for now, our database of new buildings and renovation projects is missing. It is among several features of The Chronicle's Web site that are due to be restored once other changes to the site are complete. We hope to continue making improvements to Buildings & Grounds in the months ahead. —Lawrence Biemiller and Scott Carlson

Students at Santa Clara University who are hard at work building a solar house have issued a David Letterman-style video invitation to California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to pay the house a visit. Their Refract House — one of 20 solar houses entered in this October's Solar Decathlon on the Mall in Washington — is a joint effort by Santa Clara students and students at the California College of the Arts.

The decathlon, held every two years, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. The 2007 competition was won by a team from the Technical University of Darmstadt, in Germany, with the University of Maryland's house taking second place and Santa Clara's coming in third. You can read about the challenges of the competition here.