New Zealand Commercial Design Trends Series NZ Commercial Design Trends Vol. 30/12 | Page 126

adjacent structures. The grey water is stored in an
11,356-litre underground cistern for irrigation of
the aquaponic plants and fish tanks alongside. It
also irrigates a living wall, one of two in the facility,
that grows up the dormitory wall at the rear of the
Ecodome. Students can not only open a window
into the greenhouse from their room, taking in its
warmth, they can also reach round and pluck a hop
or flower, depending on the particular crop growing
up the brickwork.
“The Ecodome is the iconic focal point of IES,”
says Patterson. “As well as a flexible learning lab,

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the space acts as a link between the residential,
academic and social aspects of the institute.”
Besides its prominent green strategies of passive
ventilation, geothermal heating and rainwater
harvesting, the integrated facility is a living example
of cyclic green thinking in other ways, too.
“Add to these large-scale sustainable strategies
such novelties as students living in the same building as the crop space they tend and a café with a
menu that will incorporate some of what’s grown
in the building, and you have this closed-loop
mentality,” says Patterson.

Above:Central divide – a
pedestrian route separates
the existing Loyola University
Chicago campus on the left from
the Institute of Environmental
Sustainability on the right. This
area can be planted for outdoor
crop research in the future.
Story by Charles Moxham
Photography by David Burke