Sustainable living: Stanford plans to build an experimental green dorm

July 2005

A lot of campus buildings have Mission-style architecture, but Stanford Engineering is architecting a building with a mission. An "Experimental Green Dorm," currently in the planning stages, will not only be a comfortable home for about 50 students, but also a powerful setting for teaching and researching environmentally sustainable living.

Engineering for environmental sustainability means finding ways for a growing world population to thrive without diminishing the Earth's ability to sustain life. "This is how we should be thinking about the future," says Richard Luthy, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). "We're going to try to demonstrate what's possible."

The vision is a bold one. Current plans for the Experimental Green Dorm call for generating as much electricity each year as the dorm consumes, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 75 percent compared to a typical dorm of comparable size, consuming 50 percent less water, and recycling up to 100 percent of the water used.

If all this sounds like consigning 50 student residents to cold showers and no way to recharge their iPods, it shouldn't. A large part of the project's mission is to demonstrate how smart design and viable technologies can make sustainable living possible without major lifestyle sacrifices or substantial extra costs. The dorm’s success will be measured not only by environmental metrics but also by the demand to live there. "We want it to be the hardest house to get into," says Emily Leslie, a graduate student with a self-designed major in energy engineering.

Thinking green

Since the Experimental Green Dorm idea first arose at a CEE department retreat in late spring 2003, students and faculty have been brainstorming and testing ideas, designs and technologies in a series of classes, says Lauren Dietrich, a construction management graduate student who is coordinating the Experimental Green Dorm project. Professor Emeritus Gil Masters and about 20 students rolled up their sleeves in winter and spring 2004 in classes that produced technical reports on candidate technologies. Classes in 2004-2005 focused on architectural designs and construction management in the fall, and systems for water recycling in the spring.

What faculty and students have come up with is an exotic suite of technologies that are cutting edge yet current. Arrays of high-efficiency solar panels, for example, can provide electricity for the dorm without any greenhouse gas emissions. Initial studies indicate that over the course of a full year, the dorm would generate as much as it consumes. "We won't make it in February but we will more than make it in June," Masters says.

An intriguing way to generate both heat and electricity is with fuel cells, which generate both forms of energy from hydrogen via a chemical reaction. Fuel cells would use 40 percent less energy than conventional equipment to provide the same amount of hot water and power, Masters estimates. Although extracting hydrogen from some fuels results in carbon dioxide emissions, the greater energy efficiency of fuel cells could still reduce emissions compared to conventional power.

The dorm could be heated by using a fuel cell's electricity to power a ground coupled heat pump, a device that extracts heat from the ground for use in buildings. The combined heat from the cell and the pump would be delivered twice as efficiently as from a conventional gas-fired heating system, Masters says.

Either solar panels or fuel cells could reduce greenhouse gas emissions even further if they power an Experimental Green Dorm car. Solar panels, for example, could charge an all-electric or a customized gasoline-electric hybrid car. At least for short trips, such vehicles could provide residents with convenient, sustainable transportation.

Some low-tech but equally innovative ideas can also help with heating and cooling the dorm. Clever architects can choose an optimal site and orientation for solar exposure, take advantage of trees for natural shading, and design cooling air flows into the building. An unusual approach to cooling would be installing a "green roof," or a garden on top of the dorm. A cover of plants on the roof would insulate the dorm and also soak up storm water.

Meanwhile, the Experimental Green Dorm's goals for water recycling–using dish water to water plants or rain water to flush toilets–can be met with ingenious on-site treatment. Proposed technologies include disinfection with ultraviolet light and using special microbes to eliminate harmful bacteria. Currently municipal regulations prevent much on-site water treatment but Experimental Green Dorm advocates hope to demonstrate that water can be recycled–even made potable–safely with available technologies.

Testing and teaching

All the technologies that go into the dorm will be professionally vetted later this year in a feasibility study approved this spring by university Provost John Etchemendy. That approval was a key step along the path to the university building the dorm within a few years, possibly among existing row houses on Mayfield Avenue.

Whichever technologies are ultimately approved for the official design of the building will only be inaugural ones, however. The dorm will include the flexibility to incorporate new technologies as they become available. To ensure that researchers can gauge their performance, the dorm will have comprehensive systems for measuring utilities, air quality and other environmental factors. Then to share that knowledge with students, the Experimental Green Dorm will house teaching facilities in the basement, making the dorm an active laboratory for sustainability education.

Beyond its significance as a residence, a laboratory, and a technology test bed, the Experimental Green Dorm would also be a tangible statement of the CEE department's emphasis on sustainability as its future direction. "If a student were to ask, 'Why should I be thinking about your department as a major?' you could say, 'Go look at this dormitory,' " Luthy says. " 'You'll see a lot of interesting things there.' "