Blog Assignment Seven

For this blog post I chose to write about French Family Science, Math, and Technology Center at Ursuline Academy. I went to Ursuline and I saw the creation of this building, which has followed the trend of sustainability. This building was the first schol building in the Southwest to be certified LEED Gold, and it is one of the most environmentally sustainable high schools in the United States.

The building was designed by SmithGroup/F&S Partners of Dallas. The building is incredibly environmentally friendly, and includes perks such as 25% lower energy consumption and 50% lower water consumption than regular high school buildings. They even used recycled materials to construct parts of building, with a total of 44% of the construction materials being recycled. The most memorable parts of the building to me were the walls of windows in all our classrooms, allowing the rooms to be lit by natural light, and the courtyard outside where we would get lunch, which had drought resistant plants, which didn't require much water to thrive, and a feature that collected rainwater. The picture below is one from when I went to that high school. The silver structure is the water collecting structure.
https://www.ursulinedallas.org/ftpimages/316/misc/misc_62660.pdf