Rochester Institute of Technology broke ground recently on their state-of-the-art “green” facility for its Golisano Institute for Sustainability. The building will serve as a center for sustainability research, technology transfer, education and outreach and will provide a showcase for green construction and design.

The new building is designed to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council, which sets goals for waste and energy minimization and reuse in building construction and operation. The campus already features one LEED Platinum and one LEED Gold facility.

The facility will house multiple labs, classrooms and conference rooms dedicated to RIT’s leading graduate programs in sustainable business practices focused in material flow, energy utilization and technology and policy. It will also serve as a “living laboratory” to test these practices and will utilize state of the art building technologies and an advanced facility monitoring system to illustrate performance. The story of its design and systems will also be told throughout the facility, making each space a learning space.

The facility construction and design team is led by LeChase Construction and SWBR Architects with additional support from FXFowle Architects, Stantec Civil Engineering Consultants and M/E Engineering.