To preserve the unique culture of UC Santa’s Cruz’s Kresge College while updating it for the 21st century, the new design reconciles character-defining features with contemporary standards of performance. Atelier Ten developed a holistic approach to sustainability addressing energy, carbon and water to health and wellbeing.
Located in a dense canopy of trees, the project tightly balances the environmental impact of the expansion while creating a unique and comfortable experience for the students. Atelier Ten studied the daylight conditions to identify overshadowing risks of the site, and made recommendations to bring more daylight into the building for those areas underlit.
To meet the UC’s carbon neutrality goals, Atelier Ten studied the sequestration impact of the landscape and trees, the embodied carbon of the building materials – including savings achieved by reusing the existing building structure, and the operational carbon of the buildings.
