Emmaus Student on 2nd-Place Team in Green Design Contest

A Lafayette College mechanical engineering major from Emmaus is part of a four-member team that took second place in the 2012 Sustainable Design Competition sponsored by the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, according to a press release from Lafayette.

Nicolas Olivares and his teammates, led by course instructor Mary Wilford-Hunt, developed a design for a community recreation center in Philadelphia using adaptive reuse strategies and analysis.

The students incorporated several sustainable techniques into their design including:

• Taking advantage of natural sunlight for lighting and heating
• Providing systems for collecting and storing rainwater for use on nearby fields
• Incorporating ground source heat pumps underneath an athletic turf field to help naturally heat and cool the building
• Designing a walkable green roof, where community members could grow plants.

For more information about the competition, visit the Delaware Valley Green Business Coalition web site.