Week 7: BIF

Tuesday, March 3rd, we went to BIF to learn about LEED certification and sustainability. It was a very interesting class because there was so much to learn concerning the construction of a building to environmental sustainable codes. I've been to BIF a number of times, but never considered that the University of Illinois is planning to create every new building to fulfill some LEED standard levels. We learned that every building built these days has the goal of lasting 100 years. That seems like a nice, long time, but also I can see how it makes sense, since the church I live by is over 100 years old and still doing great!

The floor itself is 16 feet deep and has five HVAC's (things we learned about during the TBH tour). There are a number of specific sustainability goals that these LEED buildings fulfill.  First of all, they must have recycling in their materials.  There are embedded energy costs in each material.  Aluminum is hard to extract (apparently it comes from nasty boxite mines), but cement is cheap.  However, aluminum practically lasts forever and is recyclable.  All these things must be considered when choosing materials for a building. Secondly, the building should be sustainable for water. Salt-water reclamation is a future hope for some buildings on the coasts. For BIF in particular, the goal is to keep water in the ground rather than running off to the Gulf of Mexico. Thus, the streets and sidewalks/gardens surrounding are permeable, slowing the water flow down. Buildings obviously do not allow for re-absorption of water. Finally, the building should try to be energy-sensitive. The giant roof acts to block the sunlight where it is not wanted, and the huge glass wall has shades for certain times of day. The lights dim or brighten with varied amounts of influx sunshine. The deep basement is a huge heat sink of concrete from the sun. Photo-voltaic (PV) cells function with limited success because if even the tiniest part of the solar panel is covered with snow (for example), then no energy will be harvested.

A panoramic of the building, showing the huge open space and glass wall.

The roof has gardens. Another main part of the curved over-hung roof can also be seen here.

The PV's cover the auditorium.