Forming a union

Uniterra takes campus building design honors

By Janine Anderson

The Uniterra team takes honors for its design of a new Union South on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Image courtesy of Wisconsin Green Building Alliance

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Union South needs a fresh look.

It’s one of two student unions on campus, and the university is looking to rebuild what it sees as an outdated structure. In fact, according to the university’s Student Union Initiative, redevelopment of the Union South block plays a prominent role in the UW-Madison’s 20-year master plan that focuses on green spaces, open spaces for student activities, building locations and what buildings should look like.

Furthermore, the hope, according to the initiative, is that a new Union South building will achieve a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum rating. And that’s where the Emerging Green Builders enters the picture.

The EGB is a program conducted by the U.S. Green Building Council and managed in Wisconsin by the Wisconsin Green Building Alliance. The mission is to take groups of students and professionals within five years of graduation and give them networking avenues and development opportunities in green building.

Union South and the EGB intersected last year when the project was chosen to give EGB teams a real-world, rather than theoretical, design challenge. Although the winning designs aren’t tied to the actual project, Madison teams were asked to design a green version of the 35-year-old brick structure as part of the state’s participation in the national Natural Talent Design Competition.

The Uniterra team design won the Madison competition in June. And now, members Emily Ehlers, Jeannette LeBoyer, Scott Hackel, Connor Jansen and Alex Kulis are preparing to present their project at the national Greenbuild competition in November.

LeBoyer, a graduate student in the university’s land resources program, came across the competition while walking into a library. She put together a team, calling on friends to join in, and they met at the union to develop ideas for their design.

LeBoyer, Hackel and Jansen were students at UW-Madison when they started the project; Kulis and Ehlers had graduated.

“We would sit there and say, ‘Why does nobody come here unless they have to?’” Ehlers said. “‘What are we going to have that will draw people here?’”

As a student, LeBoyer said she uses Union South but recognizes the need for an upgrade.

“I do go there quite a bit, but mainly because it’s convenient,” she said. “I definitely think it needs a pick-me-up. It’s useful for what it is.”

During its early meetings, the team sat at the union and tried to think of ways to connect the building to its surroundings — a residential neighborhood, the Vilas Zoo, museums and Camp Randall.

“There’s so much potential there,” Ehlers said.

The team wanted to emphasize the community aspect of a student union and have the project be as green as possible. The design includes a green roof, photovoltaic panels, gardens, outdoor terraces, pedestrian-friendly landscaping and easy access to mass transit.

They had trouble culling all their ideas down into a cohesive design but managed to pull it together.

“Going into it, we all wanted to win, but it was really, ‘What can we learn from this as architects and people?’” Ehlers said.

The team pulled together mechanical engineers and architects and combined them with LeBoyer’s environmental studies background. Each brought a different set of skills, which broadened the team’s ability, while making compromise an important part of the strategy.

“It was fun to work with this team,” LeBoyer said. “It was kind of a mish-mash, but our talents worked together.”

Wisconsin will send another team to the national competition as well. Team Rainwater was the winning team from the Milwaukee competition. Ethan Skeels, Adam Luckhardt and Eric Seidl won for their design of a technologies and services center at North Avenue and 10th Street in Milwaukee.