Students at the University of Colorado Boulder will be learning about their LEED-Platinum residence hall through  Residential Academic Programs such as “Sustainable by Design” and “Social Entrepreneurship for Equitable Development and Sustainability, ” or SEEDS. These programs will enable students to use the building as a living/learning laboratory. One of the university’s main objectives is to bring together students from a variety of academic backgrounds to learn about sustainability to and ways to solve complex local-to global problems. The residential programs will have various themes throughout the year and in 2011 they will be focusing on food.  “There are numerous opportunities available to graduates who can apply sustainability  to real-world problems like food production.” said Professor Susan Clarke. “Figuring out how to solve problems coming from different disciplines is what we want students to take from this program.”

Mackey Mitchell Architects, as part of the Design/Build team of Whiting Turner Construction Company and Aller Lingle Massey Architects, was selected to design the new student housing project as the result of a design competition. MMA’s design team included  Dan Mitchell, Gwynn Zivic, and Matthew Roeder.