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PRESS RELEASE |
Berkeley City College First
in its Class With a Leed(R) Silver Rating
EMERYVILLE, Calif., Sept. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Peralta Community
College District and the architectural firm Ratcliff (
http://www.ratcliffarch.com/ ) are pleased to announce
that Berkeley City College earned a LEED(R) Silver
certification rating from the U.S. Green Building Council last
week. Berkeley City College is the first building in the City
of Berkeley to achieve LEED Silver status and the first
California Community College single-building campus
constructed on an urban infill site.
Berkeley City College earned this prestigious honor by its
promotion of urban redevelopment and incorporation of various
energy-efficient design elements.
"Berkeley City's LEED Silver status is a tangible
demonstration of our commitment to eliminating greenhouse
gases and building a sustainable future," said Nicky Gonzalez
Yuen, a Peralta Community College District trustee and chair
of the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Sustainability.
Berkeley City College is the winner of the Community College
Facility Coalition's 2007 Professional Design Award of Merit
and the East Bay Business Times' 2006 Structures Award. In
addition to the life-cycle savings of its energy-efficient
design, the new building has already earned the District
$129,000 in cash incentives from Pacific Gas & Electric
Company's Savings by Design program.
Ratcliff's unique design for the six-story,
165,000-square-foot campus incorporates a wide range of
environmentally-responsible tenets that benefit the College's
students and faculty, including:
-- Site Selection and Urban Redevelopment -- By locating the
building in the dense downtown core of Berkeley, the campus
maximizes the use of an existing infrastructure and preserves
green space in the Bay Area.
-- Energy Efficiency -- The building is over 40 percent more
energy efficient than the baseline.
-- Water Efficiency -- Berkeley City College is 34 percent
more water efficient than a comparable building.
-- Promote Alternative Transportation -- The campus is located
within one block of BART and local/regional bus services.
-- Indoor Air Quality -- Indoor air contaminants were reduced.
-- Maximize Daylight -- Natural light is introduced deep into
the six-story building through a glass curtain wall, a
full-height central atrium with monumental skylight, and a
student lounge glass clerestory.
-- Reduce Light Pollution -- Lighting fixtures at the
exterior, rooftop, and below the atrium skylight are shielded
from contributing to night sky light pollution.
-- Construction Waste Diversion -- This project diverted 998
tons (77 percent) of construction waste from landfill.
-- Recycled Content and Local/Regional Materials-Ratcliff
selected building materials and finishes with high recycled
content.
Headquartered in Emeryville, Calif., Ratcliff is dedicated to
designing sustainable building solutions and teamed with Simon
& Associates to achieve Berkeley City College's LEED Silver
certification. Ratcliff provides architecture, interior
design, and planning services to higher education, healthcare
and civic clients throughout the Western United States.
Berkeley City College is part of the Peralta Community College
District which serves the communities of Alameda, Albany,
Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland and Piedmont.
Source: Ratcliff
CONTACT: Liz O'Hara of Ratcliff, +1-510-899-6400,
lohara@ratcliffarch.com ; or Mary E. Tressel,
+1-925-798-9421,
mary@tresselpr.com ,
for RatcliffWebsite:
http://www.ratcliffarch.com/ |
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