Celebrating 10 Years: The Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies

When construction of the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies got underway in the fall of 1999, the project was predicted to be the most advanced example of ecological architecture in America. Steven Litt, architecture critic for the Plain Dealer, said that the center "could be one of the most revolutionary structures of this century, or the next. It's not so much a building as it is a manifesto in bricks and mortar." Litt's soaring comments would be the first of many.

In the summer of 1999, the building's architects received awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Chicago Athenaeum. In 2002, the AIA recognized the building as one of its "Top 10 Green Projects." In 2001, the National Convention of the Associated Contractors of America awarded the Lewis Center a Build America award. A year earlier, the Associated Contractors of Ohio gave the center its Build Ohio award. The latest honor came in August 2010, when Architect Magazine contributing editor Lance Hosey named the Lewis Center the most important green building constructed in the last 30 years.

Hosey solicited feedback from 150 green building experts and advocates—including architects, engineers, educators, and critics from the United States and around the world—to name the "five most-important green buildings since 1980."

"A good many things have happened in the last 10 years for the Environmental Studies Program, Oberlin College, the town of Oberlin, and the world," says John Petersen, the program's director. "During the design of the AJLC, David Orr, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies, had spoken of the 'pedagogy of architecture'—the ways in which buildings teach lessons about human relationships with each other and the natural environment. And it turned out that lessons learned through AJLC have contributed to good things during these last 10 years."

On October 11 and 12, Oberlin will celebrate the building's groundbreaking design and environmental influence. Guest speakers and participants include Scot Horst '81, senior vice president for LEED with the U.S. Green Building Council; Hooper Brooks, international director of the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment; and Kevin Burke, Esherick Visiting Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.

The event will highlight the many successful enterprises—from organizations, to restaurants, to technological innovations—inspired by the AJLC, and it will consider how goals of ecological design first explored in the Lewis Center (closed loop cycling, material and energetic efficiency, climate neutrality and systems thinking) are now being incorporated into the Oberlin Project.

Form more information about the event, contact the Office of Public Programs at (440) 775-6785 or public.programs@oberlin.edu.