Washington State University North Puget Sound at Everett recently completed the new Everett University Center. The new academic building will serve as an engineering and STEM facility, and is seeking LEED Gold certification. SRG Partnership was the architect on the project, with Hoffman Construction serving as the general contractor; both companies have offices in Seattle. McKinstry (also of Seattle) was the engineering firm on the project and was responsible for implementing the energy and water conservation measures into the 95,000-square-foot facility. The project had a budget of $65 million, and the building was completed in May 2017 after three years of construction. Read more

Smart Design Principles Boost Productivity & Sustainability

As times and technology change, so do students’ needs. When faced with rising financial pressures and students’ changing preferences, colleges and universities continue to look for new ways to reduce operating costs while continuing to improve the educational experience. To do so, architects and designers face these design challenges head on, ultimately creating new trends and principles for sustainable institutions. Schools and universities continue to implement more flexible spaces that can be used either for quiet individual studying or collaborative group projects. Read more

You know the scenario: A small geek gets shoved into his locker by some meathead only to suffer the further indignity of being locked inside of it. It’s a staple sight gag of movies and TV, but does it really happen — can a student really get locked in a locker? That would be an emphatic “Yes!” if you believe the posts at the self-billed “front page of the Internet,” Reddit, an online, crowdsourced news site, qua bulletin board, that has long been a repository for teen angst. Read more