Dimeo Construction Company has completed construction of the University’s new STEM Research Center, as part of the Northwest Science Quad District.
The 192,000 sf LEED Gold building include a landscaped walk through a woodland corridor full of indigenous shade trees and plants that attract pollinators. Most won’t know they’re strolling through a Low Impact Development (LID), SITES-certified landscape, a model of green infrastructure and restoration resulting from a highly orchestrated engineering and landscape effort. The NWSQ unites UCONN’s research expansion, academic vision, and culture of innovation with assertive sustainability goals. Identified within these goals are a range of material, waste, land, and water-use initiatives that include preserving campus ecosystems and optimizing rainwater management.
BVH and Towers|Golde have been consulting with UCONN on these issues before joining Payette. The upshot of this well-established familiarity, with each other and the site, is evident in the 13 acres of synergy between utilities, stormwater management, habitat restoration, architecture, and site enhancement known as the Northwest Science Quad. Improved pedestrian access, aesthetics, and wildlife health are some of the big benefits of carefully designed bioretention elements, vegetated swales, subsurface infiltration, and porous pavements.
Through deep disciplinary integration and relentless coordination, BVH and Towers|Golde, together with Payette, developed a welcoming pathway through a vibrant woodland and waterway ecosystem that improves the Eagleville Brook watershed. For those walking along and interested, signage will explain many of these components.
