Ashley Takacs | Taking a chance on castles in the air

Last year, the Radian rose from the 40th block of Walnut like some great postmodern giant. From my Rodin window, I watched the structure slowly eclipse the sun. With its metallic prefab rain screens and infatuation with industrial concrete, the building was rife with modernity and promised a new age of student living. It all seemed eerily familiar, like the opening scene in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey. An obelisk delivered by some advanced beings dominates the landscape, as monkeys (Penn students) scratch their heads in wonder and fear. In the film, the monkeys evolve, become civilized and ultimately embrace the modern aesthetic. On Penn's campus, however, the jury is still out.

Colleges, including Penn, are faced with the task of redefining and redesigning student housing. They must replace the deteriorating cinder-block cells of 1970s relics with something that is not only comfortable and functional, but also pushes the envelope of sustainable design. While the Radian certainly offers luxuries - flat screen TVs, washing machines in apartments and state-of-the-art workout facilities - I had my doubts when it came to the new building's 'green' quotient. After all, a hallmark of green design is the adventure factor: not only doing what is commonplace, but also doing what will be commonplace. And with a new college house in the works, the Radian holds clues to the University's design philosophy.

The Radian successfully executes a green, but fundamentally safe, design. While the building is not LEED certified - though not commonplace at Penn during the design phase, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a building certification based on sustainability points - University sustainability coordinator Dan Garofalo is confident that it would meet LEED standards.

The recycling statistics alone suggest that the Radian is doing something right. Garofalo estimates a 60-percent recycling rate in the Radian, compared to 20 percent campuswide.

He attributes this astounding difference to the effective yet remarkably simple recycling program. "Once you get started it gets to be part of the culture . it's self perpetuating," says Garofalo. In the Radian, the developers opted for a cheap, efficient two-chute system.

The building's green roof has also garnered some attention for its sustainability. Covering 20 percent of the Radian's total footprint, the 12,000-square-foot green roof was designed primarily to satisfy the city's storm-water control regulations. Special drains capture runoff from impervious sections of the terrace, funneling it into an irrigation system. The green roof also lowers the temperature of the space below it.

But green roofs and recycling programs, while sustainable, are nothing on the cutting edge. This was by design. University architect David Hollenberg prefers green buildings that perform yet don't scream "eco-friendly." "It's not about overt design gestures like putting a windmill on a roof," Hollenberg said. He explained that academic institutions avoid making sustainability a highly visible part of a building's aesthetic because it can look dated very quickly.

But while the last thing this campus needs is a dated building (exhibit A: DRL), there's something to be said for experimentation, especially in terms of sustainability. Penn, after all, was founded by one of America's greatest innovators,and has had many historic firsts. Lately, though, ecological advances at Penn have been lackluster.

Last semester the Princeton Review released a green rating system for colleges. Penn doesn't even crack the top 10. Upon hearing this, Richard Wesley, the chairman of the Undergraduate Architecture Program, decided to improve Penn's standing. He developed a senior-level studio entitled "Edible Campus," and in an e-mail enlisted students to "replace the banal and relatively useless ornamental plantings on the campus with an abundance of food producing plants."

While the idea of snacking on shrubbery seems Wonka-esque, the project is the kind of experimentation that will get Penn noticed. More importantly, it's the kind of thing that will get Penn students to notice sustainability. Let's save tried-and-true for the real world. College is the time to go a little crazy.

I hope that the architects for the new college house adopt some of Wesley's spirit. Give us a place where sustainable design is not just beneath the kitchen sink. In making green design visible, students will be engaged with the ecological movement. But please, no windmills on the roof.

Ashley Takacs is a College junior from Buffalo, N.Y. Ash Wednesday appears on Wednesdays. Her email address is takacs@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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