The new Danforth Center, set to open next fall, will bring many new features to campus. Besides all of the new space for student groups and dining options, we are particularly pleased about two aspects of the facility: its environmentally-friendly design and its student “fun room.”

The $41 million facility is set to be Leadership Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-NC Gold certified. The LEED rating system was developed in 1998 by the U.S. Green Building Council to set environmentally sustainable standards for construction. This system covers six major areas: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality and innovation and design process.

The Earth and Planetary Sciences building was the first University building to obtain LEED certification. It acquired conventional certification, which means that it gained 40-50 percent of the points available in the six different categories. The new Danforth Center is on track to receive Gold certification, which requires acquiring 60-80 percent of the available points.

One of the most significant ways to minimize our negative environmental impact is through green construction. If the rest of main campus is any guide, new buildings could easily be around for the next fifty years or more. For this reason we are proud not only that the new Danforth Center will be LEED Gold certified, but that Chancellor Mark Wrighton has committed the University to meeting LEED standards on all new construction projects.

This is the sort of environmental leadership that we wish from the University and something that we wholeheartedly support.

We are also optimistic about the proposed “fun room” that the new center will offer students. It has been a regular complaint of both this paper and the student body that the University lacks a proper student center, complete with entertainment and lounge facilities. We hope that the new “fun room” will satisfy this demand.

According to Student Union President Neil Patel, the room will be similar to Whispers Caf‚ in style. It will sport chalkboard paint walls, allowing students to draw all over them to post messages or just to kill time. Arcade machines and high-tech chairs that serve as musical amplifiers are other prominent features. While they would have been great additions, apparently ping pong, foosball and pool tables were not included in the design because they take up too much floor space.

Vibrant student centers that offer on-campus entertainment are becoming more common on colleges around the country and are especially appealing to potential students. We are sure this factored into the University’s decision to create the “fun room” in the first place. This bodes well for the lounge, as efforts to attract potential students tend to be thorough.

At this point it is too early to say whether or not the new “fun room” will live up to its name, but the potential is certainly there. The fact that there was not enough floor space in the University Center for certain kinds of recreational equipment, such as pool tables and foosball, raises concerns about whether the fun room will be large enough to satisfy student demands, but it is too early to pass judgment. We urge the University to follow through with the fun room in order to create the ideal student center that Wohl and Mallinckrodt never managed to become.

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