Bren Hall, opened in April 2002, is located on the campus of

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

, located in Santa Barbara,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. It is named in honor of philanthropist

Donald Bren Donald Leroy Bren (born May 11, 1932) is an American businessman. He is chairman and owner of the Irvine Company, a US real estate development corporation. With a net worth of $16.2 billion, he ranks number 112 on the 2022 Forbes Billionaires ...

and hosts the university's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. The building has a view of

Santa Barbara Channel The Santa Barbara Channel is a portion of the Southern California Bight and separates the mainland of California from the northern Channel Islands. It is generally south of the city of Santa Barbara, and west of the Oxnard Plain in Ventura Cou ...

and the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

. It has been called the "greenest" laboratory facility in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Construction

Bren Hall's original location was a parking lot. All of the waste was recycled and used in the construction or elsewhere on campus. Developers designed the building to conserve power by using energy-efficient lighting, natural lighting, efficient boilers, connection to the campus's chilled water loop, and a sophisticated

building automation Building automation (BAS), also known as building management system (BMS) or building energy management system (BEMS), is the automatic centralized control of a building's HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), electrical, lighting, ...

system. Many of the furnishings—including the carpet, insulation, counters, and furniture—were made from recycled materials. All water fixtures are highly efficient, including waterless urinals and low-flow, self-closing faucets. Reclaimed water is used in the toilets and for irrigation purposes. Offices on the side of the ocean are cooled by ventilation system of air from operable windows.John Johnson
"A 'Green' Building Grows on a UC Campus: Recyclables shape environmentally friendly Bren school. From waterless urinals to skylights, the project could be a 'bellwether.'"
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'', April 19, 2002.

Platinum rating

The

United States Green Building Council The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), co-founded by Mike Italiano, David Gottfried and Rick Fedrizzi in 1993, is a private 501(c)3, membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in building design, construction, and op ...

gave Bren Hall one of its first Platinum ratings under LEED 1.0's New Construction category. On August 4, 2009, it was announced that Bren Hall had become the first building in the nation to receive a second Platinum award, this time in the category Existing Buildings –– Operations & Maintenance.

2010 ceiling collapse

On October 30, 2010, a two-ton piece of the ceiling collapsed into the building lobby. The building was evacuated, and all suspended ceilings (some of which were also found to be coming loose) were removed before the building reopened after several days. The University later reported that defective ceiling suspension anchors were at fault, and said there was no connection between the ceiling problems and the building's sustainable design."Bren’s Collapse Points to Construction Faults"
''

Daily Nexus The ''Daily Nexus'' is a campus newspaper at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). ''Daily Nexus'' lineage can be traced to the Santa Barbara State College student newspaper, ''The Eagle'', of the 1930s. After the college becam ...

'', February 15, 2011.

References

External links

Greening Bren Hall
{{UCSB University of California, Santa Barbara buildings and structures Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum certified buildings