ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 159
Study Cases. 3-The Usek University (Kaslik- Beirut) - Antoine Dahdah Architect, 2010
Figure 5: Urban structure and localization (Macchia et Al. 2012)
The USEK community is the third biggest private University in Lebanon and the biggest University of the country after the Lebanese University (public university) and Saint Joseph University
(private university).
At present, USEK welcomes more than 7,000 students over 4 campuses (Kaslik, Zahle, Rmeich,
Chekka), with its ten faculties and four institutes, namely fourteen academic units that offer a
wide range of levels of instructions. USEK students are educated by a teaching staff including
around 1,000 educators and researchers; the administration is composed by 290 staff members.
The project has a clear environmental vocation that completely falls within the logic of the energetic-environmental sustainability of the Green Universities. The policies it formulates involve
the subjection of all the new constructions and the retrieval of the existing ones to satisfy the US
Green Building Council LEED “Gold standard” requirements for new buildings and “Silver standard”
for the existing ones. Moreover the University will adopt a low consumption purchase policy for
the equipment and aims to become, within 5 years, a car-free campus. Shuttles for all the teachers, the personnel, students and visitors will be available.
The University will begin producing at least 30% of its electricity consumption from local renewable sources (solar panels), within 4 years.
The plan involves an enormous raised platform on which a mantle of vegetation will be placed.
Underneath the latter there will be the parking area. It also involves the addition of new university structures, among which academic buildings and a sport centre. The plan also foresees the
retrieval of existing buildings and the addition of a path covered by solar panels that crosses the
area.
The University Campus as a model of environmental and settlement sustainability
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