College of the Atlantic dedicates its new human ecology center
COURTESY / COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC
College of the Atlantic opened a new 30,000-square-foot academic center, the COA Davis Center for Human Ecology that includes a teaching greenhouse.
College of the Atlantic opened a new 30,000-square-foot academic center, the COA Davis Center for Human Ecology that includes a teaching greenhouse.
The Bar Harbor college, which opened its 50th academic year, said the new Davis Center includes regionally sourced, mass timber construction, 350 solar panels, wood fiber insulation and triple-insulated, bird-safe windows. It’s the college’s first academic building since the early 1990s.
The center is the largest wood fiber-insulated building in the country. It is a market case study for GO Lab’s TimberHP product, to be produced at the country’s first wood fiber manufacturing facility in Madison. Belfast-based GO Labs plans to soon reopen the 1903 Madison paper mill to make wood fiber insulation from Maine-sourced wood chip remnants.
The building was designed by Susan Rodriguez of Susan T. Rodriguez Architecture Design of New York City in collaboration with Tim Lock of OPAL in Belfast, and built by E.L. Shea Builders and Engineers of Ellsworth.
“Our goal has been to create a place that truly fits COA...more of an experience and a framework than a building,” said Rodriguez, “Ultimately a place of learning and a structure that lives up to the environmental stewardship and standards of this institution.”
The center also includes a greenhouse named for U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, who graduated from COA in 1979.
The 50th academic year also marked the largest applicant pool in the college’s history, with 536 bids for about 100 spots. The school boasts its highest fall enrollment to date with 373 students from 49 countries and 40 states.
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