Western Kentucky University’s Building Reaches WELL Certified Gold

Helping Western Kentucky University’s (WKU) signature science building achieve WELL Certification at the Gold level was such a great opportunity that mechanical engineer Tracy Steward convinced her leadership and the design team to agree to do it pro-bono as a contribution to the university and as a learning opportunity.

“When insurmountable research and data proves time spent in buildings has a direct impact on health and productivity, we need to take action by designing our built environments in an optimal manner,” said Steward, a principal at CMTA, Inc. “This would be the first WELL Certified university lab in the United States. Achieving WELL would be a huge contribution to student success in the STEM program at WKU. I wasn’t going to pass that up.”

From the onset, WKU has been committed to providing staff and students with the best spaces to work, study and live. LEED Gold was always a project goal along with indoor air quality points that were in close alignment with WELL Features.

“It is of great value for WKU to have a WELL Certified building on campus,” said Leslie North, PhD, Director of Sustainability and Associate Professor at WKU. “Ogden Hall is a reflection of our dedication to creating unique, sustainable and healthy spaces for our faculty, staff and students to work and study. It’s important for us to not only create spaces that offer the best academic quality, but also the best in health for all visitors and our environment.”

On WKU’s Campus

CMTA has updated several older buildings on WKU’s campus since the 1990s, and during that time, both organizations were shifting their thinking. “We knew the future of the built environment would be about wellness and design,” Steward said. “It’s really already here.”

It didn’t require massive or expensive overhauls for the four-story, nearly 83,000-square-foot building to become WELL Gold Certified. The campus, in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is surrounded by lush green trees and access to nature. Students are usually seen gathering to study on multiple levels of Ogden College Hall. There’s always a lot of activity in the laboratories, Steward said, where you can tune into a lecture, learn about a new research project or stumble across a collection of animal cadavers in formaldehyde.

It’s a beautiful community where purpose and meaning come together for young students, including Steward’s daughter who became a chemistry major at WKU when the university first committed to WELL.

“My long-term working relationship with the university, the people there and having a child in the building that I was designing made this work mean so much more,” Steward said. “It’s personal.”

A New Journey with WELL

As the project approached completion, Steward and her team met with administrators to plan out how to approach WELL at Ogden College Hall.

They chose to pursue WELL v2, because it is flexible and aligns with many of the features already in the space.

“Laboratories don’t recycle air like an office building,” Steward said. “Ogden Hall has high ventilation rates to remove potential contaminants and support better air quality.”

The building immediately fulfilled the requirements of Feature A09, Pollution Filtration Management with two sets of entrance doors that reduced the movement of outdoor air into the facility. Air filters throughout the space were also already actively removing indoor and outdoor particles - a key requirement of Feature A03, Ventilation Effectiveness.

Another area of focus included CMTA and adjusting the sash heights of the exhaust fume hoods that remove pollutants. The hood opening was reduced to 12 inches, and automatic sensors were added to close the fume hoods after a 10-minute time period. This adjustment not only helped them achieve WELL and other green rating systems, it also saved the university more than $1 million USD in first costs. The energy savings from a code compliant building overall is approximately $150,000 USD annually.

“Knowing that Ogden Hall meets high marks for providing a safer and healthier environment really helps us focus on the success of our students throughout their education experience,” said Gregory Arbuckle, PhD, Dean of Ogden College of Science and Engineering. “It was also a teaching moment that influenced more than just our physical building.”

WKU made additional changes to university policies and the physical space to support the health and well-being of teachers, students and staff. They offered healthier choices in the vending machine to achieve Feature N01, Fruits and Vegetables and added on-site signage for the same, fulfilling Feature N02, Nutritional Transparency. They also created a list of the individuals with special diets to accommodate for their needs in the event of catering for events for Feature N09, Special Diets.

The university purchased adjustable seating and provided access to ergonomics education to align with Feature V02, Ergonomic Workstation Design. They also leveraged existing incentives for physical activity through Feature V11, Ergonomics Programming.

“Now that Ogden College Hall has received official third-party verification, we can share how healthy it is in three simple words: WELL Certified Gold,” Steward said.

Community Celebrates Certification

Since the certification, the university has hosted tours of the building, students have held events and Josh Depp at CMTA assisted in creating an interactive website that explains the science behind WELL. Steward’s daughter was in a sustainability class where students created posters and studied the WELL Certification process. Local news stations also covered the transformation.

Undergoing certification and achieving WELL helped people in the STEM community realize that humans are designed to connect with nature, Steward said. Those elements are needed in places where we spend our time: daylight that supports circadian rhythm, clean air, spaces that mimic nature and food options where we can actually pronounce the ingredients.

“WELL spaces have the ability to help reduce illness, anxiety and depression, and brighten the outlooks of those who are occupying the space,” she said. “We certainly need to provide that for future generations.”

Additional resources:
https://www.vmdo.com/checking-in-with-tracy-steward.html
https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2020/03/05/kentucky-university-receives-national-recognition-