Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 70.59
Liaison Daryl Pierson
Submission Date June 27, 2017
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Portland State University
EN-11: Inter-Campus Collaboration

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 3.00 / 3.00 Amanda Wolf
Program + Assessment Coordinator
Campus Sustainability Office
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Is the institution an active member of a national or international sustainability network?:
Yes

The name of the national or international sustainability network(s):

-AASHE
-UNESCO Regional Center of Expertise
-National Association of Environmental Educators
-National Intramural Recreation Student Association Sustainability Committee
-Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Committee for Oregon
-North American Student Affairs Professionals Sustainability Knowledge Community
-Sustainable Leadership Purchasing Council


Is the institution an active member of a regional, state/provincial or local sustainability network?:
Yes

The name of the regional, state/provincial or local sustainability network(s):

-Oregon Environmental Literacy Program Council
-Oregon School Garden Summit (and farm to School)
-Oregon University and College Sustainability Officers
-Willamette Valley Public Sector Sustainability Coordinators
-Healthy Purchasing Coalition


Has the institution presented at a sustainability conference during the previous year? :
Yes

A list or brief description of the conference(s) and presentation(s):

Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education Conference (Minneapolis, MN):
-Designing and assessing learning outcomes, post conference workshop
-Overcoming barriers to sustainability education for international and culturally diverse students
-Reclaiming urbanity with permaculture: the first years of a food forest
-Management of an urban white oak savanna: blending indigenous permaculture with city life
-Transforming sustainability education through mindfulness, movement and creativity
-Scaling Applied Learning across campus and into the community
-Designing and Assessing Sustainability Learning Outcomes

Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference (Eugene, OR):
-Transforming sustainability education through mindfulness, movement and creativity workshop
-Identifying sustainability within Latin American cultures
-Sustainability leadership workshop: Inspiring innovation and cultivating changemakers
-Environmental and social governance strategies: a method to justice
-Sustainable self, sustainable world: cultivating self-care as a way of being
-Sustainable building in a collaborative environment
-No Scrap Left Behind: Portland State Cafeteria waste Intervention
-Assessing student, faculty, and partner perspectives on community based sustainability projects

California Higher Education Sustainability Conference (San Francisco, CA):
-Getting Started 'Campus as a Living Lab'

CUMU Conference (Omaha, NE)
-Presented on Portland Climate Action Collaborative partnership with the City of Portland

Children & Nature Network Conference (Minneapolis, MN):
-PSU provided info around health outcomes of getting children outdoors
-Facilitated an action lab that explored how to move our collective work forward and the need/opportunity to engage the healthcare sector in investing in projects, programs, interventions and research to make the link between time spend outdoors and the health of children

Japan-US Teacher Exchange Program for ESC Joint Conference (San Francisco, CA):
-facilitated session providing an overview of the US educational system


Has the institution submitted a case study during the previous year to a sustainability awards program that is inclusive of multiple campuses? :
Yes

A list or brief description of the awards program(s) and submission(s):

CODAwards 2016 winner and CODAwards top 100. The Collaborative Life Sciences Building (CLSB) is a collaborative building project partnering Portland State University, Oregon Health & Sciences University, and Oregon State University. In 2016 a case study of the building was submitted to CODA (Collaboration of Design + Art) highlighting the buildings open, transparent atrium features intergrating sustainable feartures and art.

Submission:

Overview

The Collaborative Life Sciences Building (CLSB) is part of an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional campus located on the South Waterfront in Portland, OR. The building’s open, transparent atrium features four points of entry to serve as a crossway for visitors heading toward their destinations. Suspended walkways are a commanding feature, and, literally, bridge the gaps between disciplines. The architects worked closely with the client and other stakeholders to select the atrium’s signature element: a bold, one-of-a-kind, site-specific installation by Los Angeles-based artist Pae White. The artwork was funded by the Oregon Arts Commission’s Percent for Art Program.

Goals

By evaluating the building’s environment, White conceptualized a provocative art piece, Fauxcilitator, using GE LED (light-emitting diode) contour lighting tubes in a spectrum of color temperatures across atrium soffits based on the changes in daylight. The title is a pun on the installation’s “faux” daylighting and the dependency on facility engineers for its maintenance. While considering all elements—location, people, architecture, weather—White pondered two major factors: Portland only receives 68 days of sunshine in an average year and 53% of college students (according to the American Psychological Association) experience some form of depression. These findings inspired her to create an artwork acting as a gigantic SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) lamp. The installation references the scientific hypothesis for lifting mood and stimulating well-being through the production of artificial daylight. The installation contributes to CLSB’s function as a place of learning and speculation, as well as connects with its site and surroundings. It serves as the “what-if” in medical education and plays off the atrium’s dynamic energy of crossing paths.

Process

White selected pre-fixed LED color temperatures based on the six steps of daylight determined by the Kelvin temperature measurement scale. Light temperatures range from cool (6500K) to warm (2700K), emitting colors associated with the effect of ambient mood. Cooler lighting temperatures cast shades of blue, mid-range appear white, and warmer tones emit red, orange, and yellow. This color palette corresponds to different times of day with cool temps representing morning light and warmer temps mimicking sunset or evening shade. The circular-shaped art piece is fragmented across five atrium soffits of varying height from 15 to 75 feet while still appearing visually symmetrical. An oculus serves as a secondary plane to deliberately place the installation off center and play with the dynamics of the building. The artwork’s graphic clearly asserts a core, but by being fragmented in its distribution, the center and impulse for alignment is questioned and provoked. The piece not only complements the architecture’s intended use, but adds a layer to the project that enriches the experience for people. It can be seen from numerous vantage points, including classroom and lab spaces, the adjacent Skourtes Tower, across the street, and from the Willamette River.

Additional Info

White’s selection of LED contour lighting contributes to CLSB’s sustainability program by providing energy efficiency, cost reduction, and lower overall heat generation. Although the installation is continuously in use, the lighting system dims down to 40% operation every evening to further conserve energy. CLSB’s diverse sustainable features have received LEED Platinum certification.

Also, the AIA National Committee on the Environment (COTE) named the $232-million complex a 2015 Top Ten Green Project recognizing the building’s creative integration of sustainable design strategies.

CLSB also won the AIA National TAP (Technology in Architectural Practice) Innovation Award


Has the institution had staff, students or faculty serving on a board or committee of a sustainability network or conference during the previous three years? :
Yes

A list or brief description of the board or committee appointment(s):

-AASHE Advisory Council
- Second Nature Climate Leadership Committee
-Washington Higher Education Sustainability Conference Committee
- Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference Committee
-Oregon Environmental Council
-Northwest Environmental Forum
-Lloyd EcoDistrict
-Region V sustainability knowledge community
-Greater portland Sustainability Education Network
-Advisory Board for the Green Spaces Institute
-Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Commission


Does the institution have an ongoing mentoring relationship with another institution through which it assists the institution with its sustainability reporting and/or the development of its sustainability program?:
No

A brief description of the mentoring relationship and activities:
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Has the institution had staff, faculty, or students serving as peer reviewers of another institution’s sustainability data (e.g. GHG emissions or course inventory) and/or STARS submission during the previous three years?:
No

A brief description of the peer review activities:
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Has the institution participated in other collaborative efforts around sustainability during the previous year, e.g. joint planning or resource sharing with other institutions? :
Yes

A brief description of other collaborative efforts around sustainability during the previous year:

Arizona State University: research, planning and implementation of a 44 person workshop on developing campus living laboratories; current collaboration on a working paper on the same subject.

University of Washington: collaboration on an ecosystem services strategy for a regional open space strategy in the Pudget sound.

Oregon State University: collaboration on forestry convening issues (such as the forest forum, which is a quarterly effort to host discussions on key issues related to the future of Oregon's forests)

University of Oregon: collaboration on forestry convening issues (such as the forest forum, which is a quarterly effort to host discussions on key issues related to the future of Oregon's forests)

OHSU: Collaboration on the new school of public health, and the new life sciences buildings

OHSU: Viking Pavilion at Peter Stott Center

PCC: All Gender Restrooms

WAHESC/OHESC: shared resources for conference planning


The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.