For Immediate Release:
May 8, 2018
Contact: Charley Stevenson, Owner & Principal
Integrated Eco Strategy, LLC
85 Main St. North Adams, MA 01247
413-884-2571
charley@integratedecostrategy.com
Photographs available upon request
Integrated Eco Strategy Helps Hampshire College Earn Top Environmental Certification
NORTH ADAMS, MA—Healthy materials consulting and software firm Integrated Eco Strategy (IES) has helped Hampshire College’s R.W. Kern Center achieve Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification, the world’s most stringent green building performance standard. The 17,000-square-foot, $10.4 million Center joins only 16 other LBC buildings certified to date, and follows the Williams College Environmental Center, Williamstown, as the second to be materials certified with the assistance of IES.
“We are particularly proud, as a Massachusetts company, to help local institutions achieve worldwide recognition for their green building projects,” said Charley Stevenson, IES owner and principal. “Together we are transforming the market and making the entire process healthier for all concerned—from the communities and companies where products are manufactured to construction workers and the buildings’ inhabitants.”
The Kern Center is currently the largest Living Certified higher-education project. Architects from design firm Bruner/Cott & Associates, Cambridge, collaborated with Wright Builders, Inc., Northampton, to construct Kern, a multi-functional welcome center at the heart of Hampshire’s Amherst campus. Its central glass-pavilion atrium houses a café, lounge and gallery.
With help from IES, the Kern Center’s cost was reduced by using the fewest types of materials possible, creating an unembellished yet award-winning building. Recipient of a 2017 American Institute of Architects COTE Top Ten Award and featured in National Geographic magazine, the Center also earned the Boston Society of Architects Sustainable Design Honor Award, the USGBC Massachusetts Green Building Award for Beauty and the Forest Stewardship Council Leadership Award.
Kern’s materials, like the Williams Center, were vetted using Red2Green (R2G), a comprehensive tool kit developed by IES that slashes research time and costs by up to 60%. The R2G platform combines a healthy materials database with interactive product assessment software to organize and document results.
IES recently partnered with the non-profit International Living Future Institute (ILFI), which administers the LBC program, to formally launch R2G and license it to other project teams. Results are shared among users, continually expanding materials information and accelerating ILFI’s market transformation goals.
Founded in 2010, IES supports sustainable and regenerative building design, renovation and construction by screening building materials to avoid the use of toxic chemicals, one of the most challenging LBC requirements. Responding to recent growth, IES has hired six additional healthy materials specialists and expanded their office area at 85 Main St. by 50 percent. Other recent IES projects include the Hitchcock Center for the Environment, Amherst and Yale Divinity School, New Haven CT.
Integrated Eco Strategy provides material/product research support via their proprietary software platform: Red2Green (www.materiallybetter.com).