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The Bullitt Center, soon to be the home of the UW Integrated Design Laboratory, was featured today in The Daily. Although the building does not open for three months, the center was dubbed the greenest commercial building in the world. 

The six-story, 50,000 square-foot building will be the first urban mid-rise commercial building in the United States to meet the goals of the Living Building Challenge. This certification promotes the most advanced measurements of sustainability in buildings. Designed with a lifespan of 250 years, the building includes 26 geothermal wells, deep wells that use the earth’s energy for heating and cooling, and has a 56,000-gallon cistern in the basement to capture rainwater.

Currently located just west of campus on Northeast Northlake Way, the Integrated Design Laboratory is preparing to move into the first floor of the Bullitt Foundation’s new headquarters at 1501 East Madison Street between downtown and Capitol Hill in late April.

To read more about the Bullitt Center, go here.

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The Daily published an article on January 23 called The Little Engine that Could. The article focuses on the work of Fumio Ohuchi, professor and associate chair of material science and engineering, and John Slough, associate research professor and director of research at MSNW. The two are part of the team working at the UW and the MSNW fusion lab in Redmond, Wash., building what they call a fusion engine.

The fusion engine converts fusion energy directly to electricity like a motor engine, which would make it the most efficient source of energy. A fusion reaction releases a remarkable amount of energy by combining two hydrogen isotopes. If people can harness fusion power, it would mean almost limitless, clean-burning fuel, eliminating our need for things like coal, oil, and natural gas, which account for more than 70 percent of U.S. electricity generation. 

To read more about the fusion engine and the potential it has to change our energy dependence, go here.