The Syracuse Center of Excellence received the highest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, Syracuse University announced Sept. 23. Located at the intersection of interstates 81 and 690, the building catches the attention of those driving through Syracuse.

‘It’s almost like we’re a billboard on the thruway that something interesting is happening in the middle of Syracuse,’ said Ed Bogucz, executive director of the Center of Excellence.

The Center of Excellence, a part of SU, is a laboratory for environmentally friendly innovations. From its initial conception in 1998, the goal was to create a state-of-the-art building for studying and testing new ideas in green constructing.

From the very beginning of the design process, the team was already aiming to get the highest rating on the LEED system.

‘We’re the Center of Excellence, so we better make the highest grade,’ Bogucz said.

LEED is a classification created by the U.S. Green Building Council that evaluates buildings based on their effect on the environment and its occupants.

‘It’s like the nutrition label of a box of cereal, but for green buildings,’ Bogucz said laughing.

The Center of Excellence earned the Platinum rating, which is the highest of the system. Everything from the location, to the design of the building and its energy performance made a difference in receiving the highest rating, said Rachel May, coordinator of sustainability education at SU.

The building is ‘aesthetically pleasing, it’s pretty, but it’s also serving a function,’ May said.

‘I think it connects the university and the city, and it raises the profile of the city’s architecture,’ she said.

The five-story building features a combination of green qualities that are open for tours offered every other Friday.

To start, it was constructed in an angle that takes maximum advantage of daylight, reducing the use of artificial lighting and electricity costs. The building is mostly covered by glass to allow the entrance of natural light. But it also has a system on the windows that retracts heat, said Tracy Verrier, an intern at the Center of Excellence and graduate student at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. The building can get really hot during the summer, so the system regulates the entrance of heat to the building to avoid excessive use of air conditioning, she said.

The building uses geothermal technology, which means it uses water to maintain a cool or heated environment for its occupants. Each work environment has its own temperature control to avoid wasting energy in cooling or heating places that are not being used. All of the furniture and carpeting in the building are made from recycled materials.

The Center of Excellence features a 17,000 square foot green roof on the third floor. It absorbs rainwater, reducing the runoff to the city’s sewers causing overflows that end up contaminating Onondaga Lake, a big problem the county is trying to stop.

Eric Beattie, the director of Campus Planning, Design and Construction at SU, hopes the Center of Excellence will make the city stronger and set an example for future buildings.’Maybe one day we’ll have many platinum buildings, and we’ll have to come up with a higher certification to keep on going,’ Beattie said.

For now, SU is committed to seeking a LEED rating for everything that it builds or renovates. Beattie said Ernie Davis Hall has been LEED certified with the Gold rating and that the university applied to receive certification for the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center, the Green Data Center, and the renovation of Bowne and Lawrinson halls.

vymagan@syr.edu

Published on October 2, 2011 at 12:00 pm