This month's Urbanite, a Baltimore magazine that focuses on sustainability, architecture, and city living, features a story about a drive to save a historic Jewish orphanage now owned by Coppin State University.

The Hebrew Orphan Asylum, described by Urbanite's Brennan Jensen as a "handsome hunk of Romanesque Victoriana," opened in 1873 and was a Lutheran hospital at one time. Now it sits empty and boarded up—but, city preservationists hope, not for much longer. Getting the building on the National Register of Historic Places, they believe, will be a "slam dunk" and will give Coppin State, which acquired the structure in 2003, financial incentives to restore it.

“There has been some ambivalence about what our plans for the building were,” Gary Rodwell, executive director of the Coppin Heights Community Development Corp., the university’s nonprofit development arm, told Urbanite....

I just returned from Illinois State University, where I gave a lecture about libraries and library design in the future. I got to see very little of the campus, but it was hard to miss the Watterson Towers, one of the largest dormitory complexes in the world.

I found these monumental, concrete towers unusual and, for that alone, interesting. I'm sure many people would consider them ugly, as they come from that heavy period of 1960s and 70s architecture. I did not get inside, but I did wonder what it would be like to live in one of the rooms near the top of the complex's 28 stories. You can get a virtual tour online.

What I heard on the campus was that the towers were at one time the tallest dormitories in the world, providing lodging for 2,200 students. I found no confirmation for that on the Internet, but did I did learn that each tower is divided into five five-story "houses," and ...

This post is sure to irritate people: Now and then, I check up on what Robert Bryce is writing, and the energy journalist has recently published "Five Myths About Green Energy" in The Washington Post. The "myths":

1. Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all.

2. Going green will reduce our dependence on imports from unsavory regimes.

3. A green American economy will create green American jobs.

4. Electric cars will substantially reduce demand for oil.

5. The United States lags behind other rich countries in going green.

You'll have to read the article to find out why Mr. Bryce labels these as myths. Or you could read his latest book -- Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future -- which seems to be the source of the article.

Mr. Bryce is the managing editor of Energy Tribune and he positions himself as something of a contrarian to popular...

The latest edition of DesignIntelligence features an article about the true costs of buildings, offering a useful metaphor: the building as iceberg.

"On average, only about 12 percent of an iceberg's volume sits above the water line. What's visible is quite small compared to the whole," writes Scott Simpson. "Studies have shown that over a building's useful life, the original capital cost accounts for only about 12 percent of the total — just like an iceberg. The true cost (and the real value proposition) lies below the waterline  — out of sight and out of mind. It's territory worth exploring."

Architects tend to focus on aesthetics and give too little attention to how a building works, how it uses energy, or how it utilizes space, Mr. Simpson writes. But those are the qualities that make for great design.

"Capital cost matters a great deal, of course, because it's most often...

The World Resources Institute has a proposed set of rules for counting the so-called Scope 3 greenhouse-gas emissions, reports Niles Barnes, a staff member of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and a former Buildings & Grounds guest blogger.

And he's not thrilled about what they prescribe, because they might have undesirable effects on colleges that have signed the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment. (Scope 3 emissions are those that are generated off site by activities related to the business of the campus, like air travel and commuting.)

The commitment, he points out, "requires that greenhouse-gas-emission inventories be consistent with the standards of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Resources Institute."

Here's the problem: The proposed rules may...

Do what you will with this: The Princeton Review has released its list of "the 286 greenest colleges." (Why not a round number, like 280, 250, or 300? In this particular case, who knows? But people in publishing know that lists with unusual numbers—mainly odd numbers—convey an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink sense of completeness. Hence, "14 Barriers to Deep Sleep" in Men's Health, and so on.)

This list is promoted both by the Princeton Review and the U.S. Green Building Council, with the assumption that students increasingly "are going green and care about a college's commitment to sustainability," as an article about the list in USA Today put it. In 2009, 66 percent of students—compared with 63 percent in 2008—told the Princeton Review that "they would find information about a college's dedication to the environment useful in their college selection process," according to the article....

Stanford University has spent the past 10 years wrangling with environmentalists and county officials over the construction of walking and bicycle trails that would run from the campus to the surrounding foothills and other areas, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

"The trail plan was one of more than 100 mitigation measures Santa Clara County required before giving the university the go-ahead for the huge construction program that has transformed the campus in recent years," the paper reports. But critics almost immediately found problems with Stanford's $19-million plan for the trails, which one county official described as "kind of a half-hearted sidewalk right next to a road."

Environmentalists wanted Stanford to place the trails in open land near the campus. Pushing the trails to public land and near the roads both makes for unpleasant trails and defies the...

State legislators are sending a firm message to the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities: Make room for a light rail line through the campus or the state will make that room through eminent domain.

According to the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, city and state officials say that the university's "pattern of noncooperation" and "arrogance and pettiness" could delay and drive up the costs of a nearly $1-billion project to extend the Twin Cities' relatively new light-rail system. Under the plan that system, which now runs from downtown to the airport, would get a new line that runs from downtown Minneapolis, through the university campus, to Saint Paul.

A lobbyist for the university said that administrators feared that vibrations and electromagnetic radiation would interfere with work in laboratories along the proposed line.

The Met Council and the university will start court-ordered mediation...

The State University of New York at Stony Brook confirmed on Wednesday that it will shut down large portions of its Southampton campus, starting this summer, in response to the state's budget crisis.

Newsday first reported the plans to close residence halls and eliminate most of the campus's programs, citing comments from state lawmakers who had been briefed by the university's president. Stony Brook confirmed those reports and offered more details in a news release and other information posted on its Web site later in the day.

A marine-science program and a writing program will remain open at Southampton, and residential students will be given priority for dorm space on the main campus, the university said. It is also closing one of its Manhattan spaces.

Stony Brook acquired the Southampton campus, which focuses on sustainability, in 2006.

State representatives and officials...

The University of Wisconsin at Madison and the owners of a popular bar near the campus have worked out an agreement a day before an eminent-domain lawsuit was set to go to trial. Marc and Eric Fortney, the owners of Brothers Bar & Grill, decided to accept the university's offer of $2.1-million to buy their property and drop their lawsuit, according to the Associated Press. The university needs the land to construct a $43-million building for its music school.

The university was set to use eminent domain to acquire the property. According to the Associated Press, the Fortneys did not question the university's right to use eminent domain; rather, they questioned the viability of the music-school project, arguing that the university had not raised enough money for it and would have trouble raising more because of the economic climate. The university has $20-million pledged to the building....