It’s a long way from college-dorm days of milk crates as shelving and small energy-sucking dorm-refrigerators, but for 700-plus Case students their new home away from home for the school year is fully-furnished, state-of-the-art and energy efficient.

The Village at 115 residence hall (they don’t call them dorms anymore), which was completed in time for the 2005 school year, got a second round of occupants last week, when students and parents descended on the Case campus en mass to begin the new school year.

Although the students moving into the Village at 115 will likely be most impressed with the free Internet, weekly cleaning services, full kitchens, and flat-screen TV in each common room, there is much more to the building than meets the eye.

Although the primary goal of adding this new housing to campus was to improve undergraduate life on campus, the team at University Housing and Residential Life took the opportunity to carefully choose green and sustainable design components that subsequently reduce annual energy consumption by 40 percent over other more conventional buildings.

So many energy saving and sustainable features were built into the new residence hall and stadium that an application has been sent to the U.S. Green Building Council in order to obtain a much-coveted Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

Some of the sustainable features include the non-technical like run-off water from the building irrigates the green space surrounding the Case stadium and track to the high-tech  motion sensing lights in public corridors, stairs and bathrooms.

In true higher-learning form, the university is using the lessons of sustainability beyond the completetion of the building—energy usage and monitoring statistics for the Village at 115 are being compiled and used in undergraduate research projects.

 “Case is committed to assisting students in developing a greater sense of social responsibility while providing them with the tools to solve the problems society faces,” says Sue Nickel-Schindewolf, associate director for housing and residence life at Case.

According the school’s master plan, more graduate and Greek housing is planned and from the looks of what was accomplished at the Village at 115, here’s hoping Case continues its ‘green streak’ with more sustainable buildings.

Below is a list of green and sustainable features of the Village at 115:

•    60 percent of the construction waste from the building of the Village at 115 has been recycled to date

•    Both post consumer and post industrial recycled materials were used in the construction of the Village at 115 including; recycled MDF, drywall, steel stud framing, steel and carpet.

•    While building the Village at 115, locally manufactured bricks, metal framing, ceiling grids and insulation were used, as wells as, locally harvested wood for doors, and masonry for the exterior façade.

•    The Village at 115 has additional roof insulation and a continuous layer of insulation on the exterior of each structure creating a continuous air barrier.

•    All rooms have large, operable argon-filled insulated glass windows that reduce the need for daytime lighting. Architectural features called light shelves, on the south and east-facing windows, provide shading from the sun during the warmer months to reduce air conditioning loads.

•    All public rooms, hallways, and bathrooms have motion-controlled sensors on high efficiency light fixtures, and each public living room uses halogen dimmers tied to daylight sensors to reduce energy waste.

•    Using decentralized distribution panels the electrical schematic was designed to reduce power loss in distribution.

•    Low-flow sinks and showers, water efficient toilets and front-loading washing machines, high efficiency gas water heaters with recirculation lines designed to conserve gas are used throughout the building.

•    A two-pipe change over system controlled by outside temperature is used to generate and distribute hot and chilled water, maximizing energy by using exterior cold during spring and fall.

•    Ventilation units in each building use adjustable drives and heat exchangers to heat or cool incoming fresh air, recapturing 60 to 80 percent of the conditioned temperatures that would otherwise be lost.

•    Recycling centers are centrally located in each building on every floor.