Dartmouth College has embraced the concept of "green building" with the construction of its Tuck Mall Residence Hall, joining nearly 40 percent of the U.S. education sector currently employing LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) standards for new projects.

Now under way at the Hanover, N.H., institution, the $17.6-million dormitory conforms to standards of the LEED Program, a self-assessing system that rates new and existing commercial, institutional and high-rise residential buildings.

Designed by architects Atkin, Olshin, Lawson-Bell of Philadelphia, the five-story facility is being built under the management of North Branch Construction of Henniker, N.H., and will receive the LEED Silver Level Certification when finished early next year.

One of the most striking "green" features of this building is the construction of an in-slab radiant system that will provide not only heat for the facility but cooling as well. Two 1,500-foot standing-column wells will serve as the geothermal source for the cooling system.

The LEED Green Building Rating System® is a voluntary national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. Members of the U.S. Green Building Council, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that represents all segments of the building industry, developed LEED and continue to contribute to its development.

Buildings are rated for environmental performance from a "whole building" perspective over a structure's life cycle. Based on accepted energy and environmental principles, LEED strikes a balance between known effective practices and emerging concepts. Different levels of green building certification are awarded based on credits earned for satisfying certain criteria.

According to a recent study by PinnacleOne, a Phoenix, Az.-based construction consulting firm with offices in Hartford and Boston, almost three-quarters of the education sector has implemented energy efficient designs in the past year and 39 percent of this sector either currently uses LEED green building standards or is planning to use them on projects in the coming year. These findings are reported in the 2005 PinnacleOne Pulse of U.S. Public Construction survey that examined the opinions of 167 public owners involved in construction projects throughout the United States.

Dartmouth is building the new dormitory as part of a plan to increase the number of beds on campus by 500. When the college expanded its student body in the 1970s to welcome women, it did not make a corresponding change to the physical plant. While enrollment has remained relatively constant over the past 15 years, the college continues to have fewer rooms than needed for students. Tuck Mall Residence Hall will help alleviate the shortage with the addition of 162 beds.

Work began in March 2005 on the site, which has provided some unusual challenges. For one, construction is proceeding at a "live" college campus where the safety of students is of paramount concern to Jim Schwartzkopf, project manager, and Jon Bagley, project superintendent, key North Branch personnel who are directing construction of the dormitory.

Another major hurdle facing the contractor was the existence of a steam line serving the college president's house that ran right through the middle of the new dormitory's foundation site. Crews had to install a temporary steam line and remove the existing line before foundation work could begin.

Also presenting a challenge was the need to protect a large elm tree located near construction activity. Workers had to build a 12-foot-high concrete block retaining wall around the tree. As the foundation is backfilled, portions of the retaining wall are to be removed, with the remaining portion destined to be left in place and buried.

Dartmouth's newest dormitory is framed with load-bearing block, concrete plank and structural steel; has a 14,000-square-foot footprint; and provides about 70,000 square feet of usable space.

J.P. Carrara & Sons of Middlebury, Vt., is supplying some 54,000 square feet of Dynaspan Hollow Core Planks for the five levels of the dormitory. According to Carrara's project manager, Mike Weigand, the 8-foot-wide, 8-inch-thick planks are up to 25 feet long and weigh as much as 8 tons each.

A Massachusetts contractor, M. Solberg Enterprises of Winchester, is erecting the planks, using a 250-ton-capacity hydraulic Grove crane supplied by Locke Crane Service of Raymond, N.H. Planks are picked up with a vacuum lift.

The contractor placed and grouted each level of planks in three days, on average. Each level required about 100 individual planks to cover 11,000 square feet.

By late November, crews were installing the roof of the dormitory, which is slated for occupancy in the fall of 2006.

North Branch is also construction manager for the ongoing $9.4-million Alumni Gym Pool Dehumidification and Major Upgrades project at the Dartmouth campus, and has completed several other projects there including the McCulloch Hall dormitory.

An Ivy League institution, Dartmouth College enrolls approximately 4,300 undergraduates in liberal arts and 1,200 graduate students. In addition to 16 graduate programs in the arts and sciences, it is home to the nation's fourth-oldest medical school, the Dartmouth Medical School, founded in 1797; the nation's first professional school of engineering, the Thayer School of Engineering, founded in 1867; and the world's first graduate school of management, the Tuck School of Business, established in 1900.