 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
Rise in Tornadoes, Floods Poses Risk to Colleges
What if the sort of extreme weather that has left the University of Iowa inundated in floodwaters is not a freak event? What if it is a sign of things to come? (Photograph by AP Images)
Art & Architecture Renovations Near Completion at Yale U.
Paul Rudolph's 1963 Brutalist icon is getting a makeover, plus an addition by Charles Gwathmey.
Guest Blogger: Anne Stephenson
Even the greenest construction project increases a college’s carbon footprint.
Other News
Land-Rich Universities Weigh New Options for Real-Estate Development
Universities are taking advantage of new ways to develop their holdings through corporate partnerships, a new report says.
U. of Iowa Begins Mucking Out and Assessing the Damage
The university's insurer spent the weekend starting to assess the damage to the auditorium and 19 other flooded buildings.
U. of Iowa Flooding Takes Costly Toll in Research and Equipment
Parking lots are under water, some roads leading to the campus are closed, and the campus utility infrastructure is damaged.
New campus buildings
Multimedia
A Green Building as a Billboard for Science
(A 2006 Chronicle video)
Subscribe
Subscribe to Buildings & Grounds in a feed reader.
Get the Buildings & Grounds widget for Facebook, Myspace, or your own blog.
About Buildings & Grounds
Buildings & Grounds is written by Scott Carlson (left) and Lawrence Biemiller (right). Scott Carlson writes about architecture, facilties, energy, and sustainability, among other topics. Lawrence Biemiller writes about architecture and facilities and contributes to Notes from Academe. What's happening on your campus? Let us know.
Shop Talk: 'Crouching Beast' in Michigan, Bikes in Birmingham, and More
A crouching beast of a building: Michigan State University’s choice of Zaha Hadid to design a new art museum earns praise from City Pulse, an alternative weekly in Lansing that has been tracking the competition to choose an architect for the 41,000-square-foot project. (It’s now described as costing $40-million, by the way — up from $30-million originally, with $26-million from the donors Edythe and Eli Broad.) Says the newspaper: “Hadid’s winning museum design — a crouching beast of pleated metal plates— is not in the same architectural universe as anything else on the MSU campus, or, perhaps, in the entire Midwest, for that matter. Hadid’s design looked so dynamic and aggressive it made those of her four competitors, all with valid claims to cutting-edge status, recede into inert lumps.”
 |
20 teams for 2009 decathlon: The U.S. Department of Energy has chosen 20 teams of college students from the U.S. and abroad to build solar-powered houses for the 2009 Solar Decathlon on the Mall in Washington. The teams include some familiar names — among them Cornell University, Santa Clara University, and the Technical University of Darmstadt, which won the 2007 competition with a wood-shuttered house (above) that delighted visitors. But the list also names some newcomers, including a team fielded jointly by Boston Architectural College and Tufts University, and a team from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. What kinds of challenges are they facing? You can watch a Chronicle slide show about last year’s decathlon.
Gold for green campus center: The University of Vermont’s Dudley H. Davis Student Center, which opened last year, has earned gold-level status under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. The 186,000-square-foot, $61-million structure was designed by WTW Architects.
Green biking in Birmingham: Birmingham-Southern College has 100 shiny new green bicycles (below) that students and faculty and staff members can use to get around the campus in a way that’s good for the environment — and good exercise. The bikes, made available at racks around the campus, were donated by Regions Bank. Their arrival was celebrated with a bike parade.
(Birmingham-Southern College image)
Previous: The Bush Library Contest: 'It Floats on Fountains!'
Next: Sustainability News: Kieran and Timberlake to Take Professorship, and Brown U. Goes Green