Environmental Studies 399: Thinking About Green Building


The focus of this seminar was the topic of Green Buildings. We began the semester in a traditional class setting and moved rapidly into a series of presentations by guest speakers that will helped usunderstand the global, regional, and local context for Green Buildings. We heard from architects, engineers and a variety of people who have been working with the topic of buildings, Green Building, and sustainable design. We worked to understand the basic science of buildings and the various options and concerns related to materials, design, and operation.

We used the current planning for new and/or renovated science facilities at St. Olaf that comes from a recently completed Feasibility Report created for St. Olaf by Holabird & Root working in conjunction with RFD. Our ultimate goal was to provide a report to St. Olaf outlining steps that the College can take to realize its design goals of "reflect[ing] good stewardship through environmentally sound construction and operation."

A copy of our final report is available on request!

Link to new (under construction) St. Olaf green science building resources WWW page


Minnesota Sustainable Design Guide and Misc. Seminar Resources

  • Minnesota Sustainable Design Guide
  • References on Closed Reserve in Science Library
  • Class Syllabus.
  • Group Assignments.
  • Images of recently completed posters describing monitoring of current Science Building for issues dealing with water, site and materials, energy, indoor environment, and waste. Note that images of posters are not of sufficient quality to read.


    Planning Documents for St. Olaf

    1996 Campus Framework Plan


    Links to Information about Green Campus

  • Carnegie Mellon Green Design Initiative
  • Northand College Green Science Building
  • Oberlin College Lewis Center for Environmental Studies and David Orr
  • York Computer Science Building

    Links to other Green Building and Sustainable Design Sites

  • Buildings Technology Center
  • Consortium on Green Design and Manufacturing (CGDM)
  • Ecodesign Resource Center
  • Environmental Building News
  • Environmental Design Collaborative
  • Environmental Design and Construction Magazine
  • EPA Energy Star Program
  • Green Builder Program
  • Green Building Information Council
  • U.S. Green Building Council and Leeds
  • GreenClips
  • Green Design Network
  • Green Institute
  • Minnesota OES Green Building WWW Site NEW




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