The Brown & White

The Real Estate Club and Green Builders Club hosted a tour of the STEPS building construction site Wednesday.

Approximately 50 students attended the tour, given by Anthony Corallo, vice president for facilities services.

Andrew Maier, co-president of Green Builders Club, said the tour was organized so students could learn more about environmentally friendly construction.

"We emerged from the Real Estate Club, which is based entirely out of the business school," Maier said. "We want to bring people of multiple majors together. A lot of kids are interested in LEED buildings - it makes buildings more sellable and interesting to a client."

The $62.1 million, 135,000 square-foot building is 20,000 square feet larger than Rauch Business Center.

During the tour, Corallo said the STEPS building will showcase many student-friendly features that make it relevant to today's learning environment.

For instance, the building's lab facilities, classrooms, seminar rooms and offices will be spread out throughout the building's floors instead of being clustered separately in order to create a more interdisciplinary environment, Corallo said.

"It's not going to be like Whitaker, where there's no room to hang out and talk to professors," Corallo said. "We wanted students to go through the building and see research being done."

In addition, the building will have artwork.

"The trustees asked us to incorporate art," Corallo said. "They wanted art to be a part of the building, not just on."

Artists have developed beautiful granite relief structures, as well as trees etched into glass.

"The trees on glass will symbolize an environmental building," Corallo said.

Corallo described the many environmentally friendly aspects of the STEPS building design.

The building will have lighting technology that will dim lights if there is sufficient natural light, environmentally friendly air circulation technologies, and skylights and atriums to let natural light in.

Corallo also said the building, designed in an L shape on the corner of Vine Street and Packer Avenue, was designed in a way that minimizes shadows and maximizes natural light not only inside the building, but outside as well.

The STEPS building is divided into three distinct wings. The wing along Packer Avenue is one story tall, and will feature a 75-person lecture hall along with a long, glassed hallway, similar to Rauch, with chairs for students to lounge and study in.

According to Corallo, the architects divided the building into three wings in order to create a more intimate environment for a building larger than Rauch.

Corallo took students on the upper floors of the building, where spacious study lounges enclosed with floor-to-ceiling glass will face Packer Avenue.

A four-story glass atrium entrance will be located between the two wings along Vine Street, facing east toward the new flattened field.

"There was a lot of consternation about the green field," Corallo said. "We wanted to maximize the green field, and it will actually be flat. Everything will be at the level of Maginnes."

According to Corallo, facilities services is aiming for the STEPS building to gain LEED certification.

LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a green building ratings system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council that provides standards for environmentally friendly construction. The highest certification a building can receive is platinum, which, according to Corallo, is very difficult to obtain.

"We are aiming for silver," Corallo said.

"The nature of labs' mechanical systems and airflow in the building makes it difficult," Maier said. "With labs, you have a certain air change rate, so it's harder to keep electricity costs down because you have to have systems running all at the same time. That's why it's a challenge."

"They're trying to achieve the highest rating they can, and that's a very interesting thing," Maier said. "To be looking for a silver rating is fantastic. If they can achieve higher than that it would be a bonus."

Students expressed positive feedback on the STEPS building's LEED certification.

"I am happy to hear that STEPS is looking to achieve LEED silver recognition, which is impressive given the fact that it is mainly a lab building and thus has much more rigorous energy requirements for air circulation," Bill Jones, '10, Green Builders Club co-president, said.

Natalie Smith, '11, an architecture and civil engineering student, said the fact that Lehigh will have a LEED-certified building on campus shows that the administration is taking the right steps toward making the campus more environmentally friendly.

"A green building is healthier for the environment as well as the students and faculty who will utilize the building," Smith said. "With all of the green features and the building being so health conscious, I am sure the STEPS building will be a favorite congregation place for many students."

After the tour, Mollie Garvey, '10, an environmental engineering major, was excited about the opening of the STEPS building.

"I really liked the incorporation of the student spaces throughout the building, like the lounges," Garvey said. "I really like the idea that the floor plan is going to be open, which allows for people to mingle and do homework."

"Even though I won't be able to use the building because I'm graduating, all the new environmental engineering space is exciting," Garvey said. "It's going to look absolutely beautiful when it's done."

The tour also appeared to soothe skepticism among some students about the building.

"I was skeptical when Lehigh first announced their plans for the construction of a building on the only relatively flat space on campus," John Lauretta, '10, said. "The architects did a great job in situating the building in a way that will add needed square footage for classrooms and labs while in turn providing the campus with a truly flat - not Lehigh flat - green area on campus."

"The tour today certainly dispelled any skepticism that I may have had about the nature of the project," Jones said. "Tony Corallo did a pretty good job giving us the tour and managing such a large group of students."