Rives Taylor: The Campus as Teaching Tool, and Lever

Remember the pedagogy of old campus buildings? Some of the most memorable were ornamented with busts of the founding fathers, friezes containing the names of great writers and philosophers, or mosaic-tile compositions showing classical figures. Now colleges are giving renewed attention to the duel role of facilities as both healthy vessels for education and sources of interaction in their own right. But in the era of global warming, the emphasis is on teaching students how building are assembled and operated. 

Two notable examples—Oberlin College’s Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies and the University of Texas Health Science Center’s School of Nursing—highlight visible technologies such as water collection and gray-water reuse, solar photovoltaic cells, and the tectonics of joinery and reclaimed or reused materials.

That’s one way to teach about sustainability. Many universities also create a culture of sustainability through student organizations, faculty roundtables, integrated standards for building and operation, and orientation programs for new staff members and students. Design improvements alone will not work unless the campus culture changes—in students’ behavior and the college’s operational procedures. What is vital is the marriage of a well-designed, sustainable campus with an institutional culture mindful of the triple bottom line (economic, ecological, and social) in campus operations and community life.

What’s more, every campus activity—from facility development to curriculum planning—has a social, economic, and environmental impact beyond the confines of the campus. The campus’s purchasing power, outreach, and operations give it leverage as a steward of the larger community. “Think Globally, Act Locally” really hits home when you consider that higher education buys billions of dollars of products every year, and at the same time consumes large quantities of limited community resources like power and water. 

Successful efforts in campus transportation management, as well as in waste reduction through reuse and recycling, have cut traffic in many communities and also lowered universities’ costs. In a related example, the National Institutes of Health, located in the Chesapeake Bay watershed in a northern suburb of Washington, faced community criticism because of it water use, wastewater volumes, and storm water run-off. NIH’s efforts to harvest rainwater and reuse gray water—coupled with bioremediation and storm-water detention measures—not only saved money and created new green space but also solidified a new partnership with the surrounding community.

Rives Taylor, an autumn Buildings & Grounds guest blogger, designs higher-education facilities at Gensler and leads the firm’s sustainability task force. He was previously the university architect at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and he continues to teach sustainable-design methodology at the University of Houston and Rice University. You can read his previous post here.