MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

Please join us in celebrating Charter Day Weekend in Ithaca from April 24-27, 2015. The three-day event commemorating Cornell’s 150th anniversary is filled with dozens of official events, famous alumni, musical performances, Sesquicentennial ice cream, and so much more! Come meet current CUSD students at the Student Innovators in Action event in Duffield Hall on Saturday, April 25th from 11am-3pm. Also be sure to check out our website and Facebook page for updates and information about more events!

CORNELL UNIVERSITY SUSTAINABLE DESIGN NEWSLETTER FALL ‘14

Nearly ten years ago, students on the Cornell University Solar Decathlon Team presented their first entry in the biennial Solar Decathlon Competition on the Washington National Mall. Their Net Zero House took home second place in the competition. Over the next four years, the team competed in two more competitions before deciding in 2010 to expand their efforts beyond creating solar-powered homes and focus on a broader definition of sustainability.

Thus, the Cornell Solar Decathlon Team became Cornell University Sustainable Design. Sincethen, CUSD has completed two internationalprojects and countless local ones. Currently, ourteam of roughly one hundred students is workingon a variety of projects dedicated to givingback to Cornell: the Beebe Lake RedevelopmentProject, the Cornell Tech Project, and the Re-Innovations Project. Read on to learn about what our students accomplished this past semester!

INTRODUCTION

CHARTERDAY

IT’S A BIG YEAR FOR CUSD!we have been working to make this year extra-special, getting more involved on campusthan ever before. Students this semester createda portable CUSD gallery, a sustainability muralat the Cornell Childcare Center, and newrecycling and composting signage for the Collegeof Human Ecology. We also hosted a lecture on Sustainable Transportation, a sustainabilitybooth on Ho Plaza, and are helping develop Cornell’s next campus-wide sustainability coalition.

To celebrate both our fifth year as Cornell UniversitySustainable Design and Cornell’s Sesquicentennial,

They explored the ways to provide the functionality that our building needs, and gave excellent interior design recommendations to our stakeholders, providing them with twelve unique designs to choose from. We look forward to continuing to advance this exciting project in thecoming semester!

To help our stakeholders and students explore and better understand the breakdown of the building, several students worked with the MarComm team to create an intricate scaled model of the building. Thelandscaping team used last semester’s finalarchitectural design to enhance the landscapingplan throughout the site, and are working closely with our stakeholders to survey Beebe Lakein an effort to create an accurate assessmentof dredging needs and make detailedrecommendations for lake maintenance. The technology integration team continued their in-depth research of potential technologiesthat can be suitable for the building.

BEEBE LAKE REDEVELOPMENT

NEWSLETTER

We also finalized the project’s structural and geotechnical design, including the foundation, retaining wall, slope drainage system, and shear walls. Our metrics team distilled the LEED V4 credits checklist to show that our design can achieve at least a LEED Platinum certification. The team is also working rigorously on a cost analysis that covers every aspect of our project. Simultaneously, our logistics team worked to enhance the Project Approval Request for the design phase of the building and organizeour work from the last three semesters into a comprehensive digest for our universitypartners, stakeholders, and sponsors. Finally, we partnered with Dr. So-Yeon Yoon’s Junior Interior Design studio in the department of Design and Environmental Analysis.

The Beebe Lake Redevelopment Project works in collaboration with Student & Academic Services,Cornell Facilities, Cornell Outdoor Education, thePlantations, and the Outing Club to rehabilitateBeebe Lake and the dilapidated Japes Lodge.The new building, which we designed over previoussemesters, will serve as a "trailhead" to Cornell’snatural areas and provide a comfortable lakesideretreat for students, a hub for outdoor activities,and a bridge between academic programsand the natural environment. This semester, ourteams worked with stakeholders and universitypartners to fine-tune our designs and continueadvancing the project on the university’s agenda.

RE-INNOVATIONS

NEWSLETTERRe-Innovations (RE-I) is a collection of small projects working to contribute to sustainabilityefforts both on Cornell’s campus and in our greater community. Working with Cornell Facilities, the Re-Innovations teams are dedicatedto finding new ways to make planning, building,and renovation projects more sustainable.

Last semester’s Rice Hall project is now complete, and the university is beginning its renovation process, which is on track to receive a LEED Gold rating. The Upson Hall team, which is figuring out ways to reduce heating loads in the soon-to-be renovated MAE building, worked this semester to improve their high-efficiency building occupancy sensor systems. The Green Building Metrics Project (GBMP), which is developing ametrics system for sustainable products, did their first in-person trials this semester, and are looking into methods and platforms for sharing the metrics publicly. Following up on the last spring’s solar feasibility study for the Ithaca campus, students this semester collaborated with the Cornell Tech Wind Team to begin developing a wind power feasibility study for campus as part of agoal to help Cornell become more dependenton renewable energy sources.

CORNELL TECHThe Cornell Tech Initiatives project is continuing its efforts towards ensuring that the in-progress Cornell Tech Campus on Roosevelt Island is as sustainable as possible. This semester, the Solar Team re-joined the project to research and design a floating PV array to increase the renewable energy portfolio of the campus without using up valuable land space. There was also a brand-new addition to the project in the form of the Phase II Planning Team, which is working to create a master plan for the secondphase of the campus. The Geothermal Team advanced its work modeling a system for the first academic building on campus, this time in physical form. After spending the first half of the semester developing a wind feasibility study for the Ithaca campus, the Wind Team returned to CornellTech and researched innovative wind technologiesfor the NYC campus. Lastly, the LEED Neighborhood Development Team worked on getting the campus LEED ND certified.

NEWSLETTERINFRASTRUCTURENow an entrenched part of CUSD, ourInfrastructure project is having one of its busiest years yet. The three teams that make upour internal support network, Marketing and Communications, People Development, andOutreach, spent their semester hosting events, interviewing students, partners, and supporters, working with other organizations around campus,training leaders, growing our brand, and connectingus with the local community. This semester, theMarComm team created an impressive amountof new material, design work, and branding strategyfor CUSD. With an expanded team, our studentswere able to create unique brand identitiesand materials for each of our CUSD projects.

They also worked throughout the semester to help us commemorate our fifth anniversary, introducing a new branding scheme, developing a portable gallery, and creating new graphic and written content which will translate into new videos, webpages, and multi-media material throughout the coming semester. The People Development team dedicated their semester to developing a team lead training program, interviewing current and former team leads, creating training materials and leadership guides, and hosting a leadership workshop for current leads and deputies. Their new training program will launch in the spring semester.The team also ran our general body meetings, created a new system for tracking team and member progress, and hosted our second-ever Collabathon! The Outreach team, having reinstatedour age-old outreach requirement last spring, worked this semester to bring our members’ community involvement to higher levels than ever before. The team spent the first half of the semester planning events for the Green Apple Day of Service before partnering with E.Y.E.S. and Destination Imagination to bring our studentsto schools throughout the community. Finally,the team began developing an “Inreach” component as a way to keep students involved in fun and exciting cross-project work.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Beebe Lake:Eden Brachotevb7@cornell.eduJosh Glasserjg769@cornell.edu

Cornell Tech:Courtney Koelbelclk93@cornell.eduZac Cesaroztc3@cornell.edu

Infrastructure:Mallory Barkermlb424@cornell.edu

Alumni Board:Jared Landsmamjpl236@cornell.eduAylin Gucalpabg86@cornell.edu

The semester also brought another big change to the Infrastructure project. At the beginningof the semester, we decided to replace our internal Alumni Relations team with a brand-new Alumni Board. Now we have a dedicated groupof nineteen former members of both the SolarDecathlon and Sustainable Design teams who work with us to help guide our team’s trajectory, find exciting new opportunities, and keep us connectedto our alumni base and our history. The boardalso works to plan alumni reunions, officetours, and networking events throughout the year. Stay tuned to find out about future events near you!

Re-Innovations:Courtney Koelbelclk93@cornell.edu

NEWSLETTER

A BIG THANK YOU TO OUR

ALUMNI BOARD

JOSEPH NELSON

ADRIENNE ROSENBLATT

THOMAS MURRAY

JEREMY BLUM

AYLIN GUCALP

SAHEJ LOCHAM

MICHAEL HARRINGTON

LEAH MEYERHOLTZ

LAUREN FIENSTEIN

DARA PERL

JOHN LEAPE

JARED LANDSMAN

CHI-CHI LIN

JESSICA BLOOM

JOHNNY LAU

EILEEN QUIGLEY

JUSTIN KHANNA

BERNARDO MENEZES

JATIN KHANNA

FOR THEIR HARD WORK AND DEDICATION

Remember that you can stay up-to-date with all the latest CUSD news throughout the year by checking out our website www.cusd.cornell.edu and following us on Facebook at facebook.com/CUSustainableDesign. If you’d

like to get more involved, send us an email at cusd@cornell.edu!