Rice’s Children’s Campus boasts energy-efficient features

Rice’s Children’s Campus boasts energy-efficient features
Rainwater tank one of many sustainability efforts

BY JENNIFER EVANS
Rice News staff

When children at Rice’s new child-care center ask, “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?” the answer will be, “With rainwater collected and stored in an 8,000-gallon, underground rain harvesting tank.”

The 18-foot-by-10-foot tank was installed last month at the Rice Children’s Campus currently under construction one block west of campus. The water collected in it will be filtered and used to irrigate the landscape of native trees and plants that will surround the building.

	An 18-foot-by-10-foot tank was installed last month at the Rice Children’s Campus currently under construction one block west of campus.

“With this project, we’re demonstrating that we can create a beautiful landscape watered solely by rain that falls on the site,” said Richard Johnson, Rice’s director of sustainability. “We receive an average of about 50 inches of rainfall each year in Houston, so why buy treated drinking water from the city to irrigate landscaping if we don’t have to?”

The rainwater harvesting tank is one of many “green” measures being put in place as the building is constructed — like all new campus buildings — to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. LEED is a rating system from the U.S. Green Building Council that recognizes energy efficiency, water savings, use of green materials, good indoor air quality and sustainable site development. The Rice Children’s Campus will be among only a handful of LEED-certified schools in Texas.

“We are expecting that because of LEED, the Rice Children’s Campus will be about 15 to 20 percent more energy-efficient,” Johnson said. “With the rain tank and the selection of water-efficient fixtures, our overall consumption of city of Houston water will be cut by about 50 percent.”

Project manager Joujou Zebdaoui noted that including a rainwater harvesting system in a project can be an expensive endeavor, and many times this feature is tabled in the design process because of cost. However, for this project, the system was a money saver. Without it, Rice would have had to install a costly storm sewer line on Chaucer Street.

“This was an instance where thinking about the sustainable use of a natural resource — water — led us to a solution that saved both up-front costs and ongoing utility costs for the university,” Johnson said.

Among the other “green” aspects of the project are a roofline designed with a unique angle so that it will capture natural light, odor-free and zero volatile organic compound paints and other materials, LEED-certified linoleum rather than carpet and a self-monitoring mechanical system to maximize energy efficiency.

For more on the Rice Children’s Campus, which is scheduled to open this fall, visit the http://project.rice.edu.