Buildings & Grounds

This year UW Tacoma gained a new centerpiece designed to connect the campus with and enhance the surrounding urban environment. The Prairie Line Trail provides a new path to walk and bike through campus, and also creates a new common space for the UW Tacoma community.

UWTV's latest episode of UW 360 takes a look at the trail, exploring the history of Tacoma and the railroad line that formerly occupied the space which is now the Prairie Line Trail.

Watch:

The student housing at Mercer Court includes a number of sustainability projects (like the UW Solar project on the roof). One feature takes advantage of Seattle's rain to help make doing laundry more environmentally friendly:

A research team is using a Green Seed Fund grant to test whether or not the indoor climate control system in the University of Washington student union building (HUB) is helping it save energy.

The US Green Building Council recently awarded LEED gold certification to UW Medicine Phase 3.1 in South Lake Union. Green features of the 183,000-square-foot, seven-story building include a storm water cistern for irrigation, a heat-recovery chiller, high-efficiency boilers, exhaust air energy recovery and more. The project was financed through $165 million in tax-exempt bonds via the National Development Council.

The University of Washington announced today that PACCAR Hall has been awarded LEED Gold certification established by the U.S. Green Building Council and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI). LEED is the nation’s preeminent program for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.