Over the last 15 to 20 years, the combined energies of students, faculty, and administrators have broadened the focus on sustainability at U.S. colleges and universities to encompass a wide spectrum of concerns. From a start in recycling, raising awareness, and environmental-studies programs, the higher education’s sector’s green endeavors have burgeoned to in­clude curriculum and research, planning and administra­tion, and the many facets of campus operations…

In constructing a new welcome center with administrative offices, a social hub, and classrooms at its campus entrance, Hampshire College, a liberal arts school in Amherst, Massachusetts, perceived a fit between its institutional values and an ambitious environmental effort. The college’s recently completed R.W. Kern Center, designed by Cambridge, Massachusetts–based Bruner/Cott, is built to meet the Living Building Challenge (LBC) and has just embarked on the operational tracking year required for certification.

Read the full article at Architectural Record.