New Zealand Commercial Design Trends Series NZ Commercial Design Trends Vol. 30/12 | Page 120

Project Institute of Environmental Sustainability, Loyola University Location: Chicago Architect: Solomon Cordwell Buenz LIVING AND LEARNING An integrated dormitory, academic facility and giant urban garden come together to create an environment where students walk the sustainability talk every day As the need for sustainable thinking ramps up, so too does the need to inspire engineering, agricultural, and science students to look hard to the future. And what better way to help them envisage a viable green world than by offering a living, operable example just outside the dormitory window or through a glass cutaway in the floor? The Institute of Environmental Sustainability (IES) on the south side of Loyola University Chicago campus is all about real-life lessons. Designed by architect firm Solomon Cordwell Buenz with Devon Patterson and Jim Curtin as design principals, the integrated learning facility is a coming-together of 112 search | save | share at trendsideas.com green building strategies, planet-friendly energy use, eco-farming, indepth research and teaching laboratories, student housing and a social hub. The 65,532m2 complex integrates three building forms. There is an existing brick structure, BVM Hall, reworked as office, teaching and research facilities, and a central urban farm and laboratory under glass, known as the Ecodome. Bookending this is a new brick building – San Francisco Residence Hall. Designed in harmony with nearby campus architecture, this building also runs along behind the dome, with some students having windows that open directly into it. Preceding pages:The Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago includes an academic wing and a dormitory wing in red brick. The glass Ecodome is between these buildings. Below:San Francisco Residence Hall, with rounded corners, houses 406 students. Right:Locating the IES atrium partly inside the Ecodome helps keep students and visitors warm.