The new Tip­ton Meet­ing House min­i­mizes energy usage with its solar array, pas­sive heat­ing and cool­ing sys­tem, and other design fea­tures. Image credit: Kevin Tittle

by UC Santa Bar­bara Pub­lic Affairs

The Tip­ton Meet­ing House at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Sedg­wick Nat­ural Reserve has been des­ig­nated one of the “green­est” build­ings in the nation, earn­ing LEED Plat­inum cer­ti­fi­ca­tion –– the high­est sus­tain­abil­ity rat­ing pos­si­ble –– from the U.S. Green Build­ing Coun­cil (USGBC).

The newly con­structed, pri­vately funded vis­i­tor and edu­ca­tion cen­ter is one of only four UC build­ings, includ­ing UC Santa Barbara’s Bren Hall, to have earned this dis­tinc­tion. The Tip­ton Meet­ing House received the max­i­mum LEED design cred­its pos­si­ble. Includ­ing Sedg­wick, UCSB over­sees seven of the 36 pro­tected sites in the UC Nat­ural Reserve Sys­tem, the largest net­work of university-managed wild­land pre­serves in the world.

“The Tip­ton Meet­ing House allows us to ‘walk the talk’ regard­ing envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship in the Uni­ver­sity of California’s Nat­ural Reserve Sys­tem,” said Kate McCurdy, a con­ser­va­tion biol­o­gist and direc­tor of the Sedg­wick Reserve. “Our tri-fold mis­sion of research, edu­ca­tion, and pub­lic ser­vice will be enhanced by the addi­tion of the new build­ing and all that it offers in energy con­ser­va­tion, a thought­ful design that melds beau­ti­fully with the Santa Ynez Valley’s bucolic land­scape, and 21st cen­tury tech­nol­ogy in sup­port of the sci­en­tific users of the reserve.”

For the first time, Sedg­wick has a cen­tral gath­er­ing place for its nearly 4,800 annual vis­i­tors, with indoor and out­door class­rooms for work­shops, meet­ings, remote tele­scope pre­sen­ta­tions, and K-12 out­reach activ­i­ties. The single-story, 3,000-square-foot build­ing also houses the reserve’s admin­is­tra­tive offices. There will be a for­mal ded­i­ca­tion for the new facil­ity later this month.

“Our cam­pus is deeply grate­ful to our won­der­ful friends in the com­mu­nity, espe­cially the Tip­ton Foun­da­tion, and to all of the build­ing pro­fes­sion­als who were involved in the plan­ning and con­struc­tion efforts, for their vision for the Tip­ton Meet­ing House at Sedg­wick Reserve,” said UCSB Chan­cel­lor Henry T. Yang. “The addi­tion of the Tip­ton Meet­ing House to this mag­nif­i­cent site allows UC Santa Bar­bara to bet­ter serve the com­mu­nity we are part of. We are immensely proud to be a leader in sus­tain­abil­ity research, and we are delighted by the LEED plat­inum cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by the U.S. Green Build­ing Council.”

The Tip­ton Meet­ing House was designed and built to have min­i­mal impact on the land. It max­i­mizes the use of local, nat­ural, and recy­cled mate­ri­als; har­vests the sun, rain, and wind; and incor­po­rates many sus­tain­able design fea­tures, includ­ing a solar-power array and var­i­ous archi­tec­tural inno­va­tions that pro­mote sum­mer cool­ing and pre­vent win­ter heat loss. The build­ing uses 60 per­cent less energy than con­ven­tional con­struc­tion. The archi­tect was Thomp­son Nay­lor Archi­tects, Inc., of Santa Barbara.

LEED is an inter­na­tion­ally rec­og­nized green build­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem, pro­vid­ing third-party ver­i­fi­ca­tion that a build­ing was designed and built using strate­gies aimed at improv­ing energy sav­ings, water effi­ciency, emis­sions reduc­tion, indoor envi­ron­men­tal qual­ity, and stew­ard­ship of resources. UCSB is com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that all new con­struc­tion achieves LEED cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. The cam­pus is also pur­su­ing LEED cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for exist­ing build­ings by chang­ing oper­a­tions and main­te­nance pro­ce­dures to meet green standards.

Jor­dan Sager, UCSB LEED pro­gram man­ager, added: “Sedg­wick Reserve’s new Tip­ton Meet­ing House is an out­stand­ing exam­ple of an inte­grated approach to green build­ing. The project’s LEED Plat­inum cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is due to the ded­i­ca­tion of some extremely tal­ented plan­ning, design, and con­struc­tion pro­fes­sion­als who made sus­tain­abil­ity the dri­ver of count­less deci­sions, from Tipton’s con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion to its completion.”

Ron Cortez, UCSB asso­ciate vice chan­cel­lor for admin­is­tra­tive ser­vices and co-chair of the cam­pus sus­tain­abil­ity com­mit­tee, added: “The syn­ergy devel­oped from our cam­pus com­mu­nity work­ing together in such a pos­i­tive man­ner will con­tinue to fos­ter sim­i­lar sus­tain­abil­ity projects in the future.”

The Tip­ton Meet­ing House was funded by gifts from the Tip­ton Foun­da­tion of Santa Ynez and a bequest from UCSB alum­nus Mar­vin Clarke. The nearly 5,900-acre Sedg­wick Reserve offers edu­ca­tional pro­grams and vol­un­teer oppor­tu­ni­ties. It is open to the pub­lic on the sec­ond Sat­ur­day of each month for hikes and other activ­i­ties. For more infor­ma­tion, call (805) 686‑1941 or visit: http://nrs.ucop.edu.