A green building wave is spreading on the nation’s college campuses, and students are taking the lead. More and more, reports Michael Gaworecki for Wiretap, environmental studies and biology majors are putting eco-friendly theory into practice, using energy-efficient building techniques to construct on-campus housing powered by renewable energy sources.

Colorado College, Warren Wilson College and Prescott College in Arizona are just a few of the schools where students are demonstrating the benefits of sustainable development by living in houses that they designed and built to be in tune with the natural environment. It has been as much a lesson about working with the environment as it has been a lesson about working with people.

“Just as students can’t turn their goals for their campus into reality without the support of the administration,” writes Gaworecki, “the environmental movement can’t push society in a more sustainable direction without enlisting the help of society’s architects.” And society’s architects know a good investment when they see one. Projects like the Mercury House in Prescott, Arizona, have been so successful that there is now a market for sustainable student housing in the area, and housing contractors have begun stepping up to meet the new demand.
-Nick Garafola

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