Mindful U at Naropa University

13. Scott Rodwin: Awareness of the Built Environment

February 13th, 2018  |  31 mins 48 secs

ada, architecture, green building, sustainability

We're asking questions about changing an ordinary classroom into something that is as wonderful and nourishing and sustainable as it can possibly be. How does it encourage a great learning environment? How does it become part of the beauty of the campus? How does it contribute to the sustainability of the campus? All these things get wrapped in. Sustainability is too often thought of as a technical overlay to other rules and requirements necessary for building. We don't want to look at it that way, but rather as the starting point–part of the holistic design. When someone says I need a thousand square feet for a classroom - we should be asking questions like "why do you need it? What are you trying to achieve? Who is going to be there? What experience should the students have in this classroom? Should there be a living wall in the classroom? Should there be flexible seating? What kind of indoor/outdoor connection are you looking for? What kind of natural daylight?" and so on. These are the sustainability aspects of our questioning, and the answers all go back into the holistic design of the built space.