The Voice - Student Newspaper

Business building designed for change

After being under construction for a year, the business building, which first opened its doors in 1966, finally reopened it doors for students and staff on Tuesday Aug. 18, 2009.

Like all new buildings on campus, such as the Student Union and the Life Science Building, the Business Building was constructed using The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria and guidelines.

LEED's incentives are simple: go green. They use materials that are recycled and/or environmentally friendly. When remodeling the building they reused materials such as the majority of the shell and structure of the building, and recycled carpet, ceiling tiles and furnishings.

"[The building] has nicer desks, chairs, and computers. It seems better equipped for a good learning environment," says student Rafeal Raigoza.

The building was remodeled using materials like Swiss Pearl, which is used as an interior and exterior cladding material. This can be seen in the breezeway, a new feature to the building. The breezeway, which before was electrical and mechanical rooms and an elevator, is now a shortcut. Students no longer need to walk around the building – they can now just cut through the breezeway.

"That breezeway thing helps a lot, saves time when I'm running late. I don't have to go all the way around the building," says student Pedro Zamora.

Although using LEED guidelines isn't the easiest thing to follow, most believe it is the right thing to do.

Patricia Vogel, who was part of the Business Planning Team, says, "[We] use recyclable and green friendly products in order to leave as small of a carbon footprint in the future."

Because technology is constantly changing, the Business Building was designed to accommodate change. For example, in classroom B105 the tiles can be removed or rotated. This allows the placement of power and data cabling to be easier in the future.

Another feature is the Wall Talker, which is an entire wall that can be used as a smart board or white board. "I like how they created a whole white board wall, I found that pretty creative," says Zamora.

Also all fifteen classrooms have projectors in them.

"I think the college did a wonderful job of preserving the history of the building and modernizing the classrooms and technology for teaching and learning. The technologies in the classrooms are state of the art. . . They can also be reconfigured to enhance the classroom learning style without disrupting technology," says Vogel.

Please send comments to ezamora@gccvoice.com