University of Oregon’s Lewis building secures LEED Platinum certification

The University of Oregon (UO) has secured LEED Platinum certification from the US Green Building Council for its $65m Robert and Beverly Lewis Integrative science building.

The five-storey, 103,000ft² Lewis building was commissioned in October 2012 as part of the university’s Lorry I. Lokey science complex.

Located on the UO campus, east of Huestis Hall, the facility connects with Streisinger Hall to the west, Klamath Hall to the west on one level, Deschutes Hall to the south on one level and to Lokey Laboratories to the south.

The building is home to biologists, chemists, neuroscientists, psychologists and other researchers.

The facility, which includes energy-intensive wet labs for biologists and chemists, brings researchers together under one roof from a range of different disciplines.

It features 46 faculty offices and office space for graduate and post-doctoral students, ten collaboration and meeting spaces and over 30,000ft² of laboratory space for life and materials sciences.

UO said the Lewis building will use 62% less energy than similar conventionally designed buildings, and about 17% of the energy savings come from the reuse of waste heat that is used to control the temperature in the labs as well as offices.

Sustainable features of the project include the use of rooftop solar panels, exterior solar shading on south-facing windows, rain gardens to collect storm water and low-maintenance landscaping.

UO vice-president for research and innovation and dean of the graduate school Kimberly Andrews Espy said that the combination of usability and sustainability sets the stage for the future of research and innovation at the university.

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Image: The Robert and Beverly Lewis Integrative Science Building at the University of Oregon is the first structure on campus to secured LEED Platinum certification. Photo: courtesy of University of Oregon.