Williams Village at the University of Colorado is garnering a lot of attention for its sustainable design features.  This month’s Buildings magazine named it the grand prize in the “project innovations” section. Completed in August, the 500 bed-living learning community is set to beocme the university’s first LEED Platium building.

The building is fitted with a suite of meters and an automated monitoring system that allows administrators to monitor, display, and track consumption of electricity, water, chilled water, and steam at the heating and cooling plant. An additional submetering system shows real-time consumption data on a large LCD screen in the lobby, a function that will help determine the winner of building and campus energy use competitions planned for the fall. The screen translates the data into illustrations of students’ environmental impact by showing usage in terms of equivalent carbon dioxide emissions, forest acres and number of trees required to absorb emissions, driven miles, and gallons of gas. The project manager for the university’s housing and dining department commented, “Fom the beginning, the vision for the new residence hall was to create a ‘laboratory’ to blend sustainability with student housing and academics. Mackey Mitchell served as associate architect working with Aller Lingle Massey.