Vermont colleges residence hall achieves LEED gold status

on Wednesday,June 02,2010 21:06

Green Mountain College of Poultney Vermont has had one of its residence halls designated as a LEED gold-certified building by the U.S. Green Building Council. SAGE Hall, which stands for Students for Academic and Green Engagement, is the honors residence hall and houses 26 students. It is the seventh major gold-certified building in the state. It is also the first renovated college residence hall in Vermont to receive gold certification.

Structures meeting basic requirements established by the U.S. Green Building Council are deemed certified while those going beyond minimum standards are eligible for silver, gold, and platinum ratings.

SAGE Hall was renovated last year. Building features include energy star windows, high-efficiency lighting fixtures and individual heating controls, among others. Local materials were used whenever possible. The final cost for the renovation was $1.3 million. A New Hampshire firm, HP Cummings, managed construction of the project. The architect was Smith-Alvarez-Sienkiewycz of Burlington, Vermont.

"The greenest building is the building that's already standing," said assistant professor of environmental studies Lucas Brown, who was an advisor on the project. "It takes a lot of energy and resources to construct a new building. In this renovation, 95 percent of SAGE's interior and exterior walls were retained."