The Uncommon Commons

Passing by the parking lots and cars, you’ll eventually come to Buntrock Commons, one of the first buildings on campus to be explicitly affected by “green” design. The light is one of the most important elements of this design. We haven’t designed sunlight, of course, but we have designed a building that captures lots of sunlight for both functional and aesthetic reasons. The slate floors in the Crossroads are another example of St. Olaf’s ecological designs. They will last almost forever because they don’t wear out easily. The carpets in some of the hallways come from a company called Interface, which manufactures recyclable carpet tiles. If you spill something on it that can’t be cleaned, we can replace the single tile that’s affected, and send the old one back to Interface for recycling. And as you’ll discover, the elevators in the building are designed to go slow, to encourage people to walk up the stairs. The Commons is not a perfect building, and it’s not sustainable, but—top to bottom—there are important elements of ecological design built into it.