Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Virginia Tech and Lanford Brothers Co.: Building education in Botetourt
A Botetourt County company will include students from Virginia Tech as it prepares to build an addition.
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The forthcoming headquarters for Lanford Brothers Co. in Botetourt County is intended to be not only a showpiece for green development but also a textbook case for study by Virginia Tech students.
Virginia Tech will capture in words, sound and pictures the planning, construction and performance of a planned new office building for study as a classroom aid.
Annie Pearce, assistant professor in Tech's department of building construction, said the university wants to offer students of construction-related trades a dimension not always found in textbooks and lecture material: exposure to real-world problems.
Toward that end, Lanford Brothers Co. has agreed to academic scrutiny during the building of a 5,000-square-foot addition on its headquarters off U.S. 11 in the Hollins area. The company, a highway and bridge contractor, announced the $1.2 million project Monday.
The project is one of special public interest because Lanford Brothers intends to seek certification for the expansion from the U.S. Green Building Council, which sponsors a rating system for green, environmentally friendly buildings.
Lanford Brothers intends to use low-flow fixtures that conserve water, plant a garden on the roof and make recycling containers handy, to name a few examples on a list of features expected to add about 2 percent to the project's cost. The estimated completion date is in June.
As the project unfolds, Tech graduate student Sandeep Langar will videotape interviews, put figures in a database and write a case study for the benefit of current and future faculty members and students of Tech's various construction-related programs and even those at other schools. A webcam focused on the job site is planned, and the design is nearly completed.
"Every piece of paper that's generated, or electron, we hope to archive," Pearce said. "We are actively documenting every aspect of the project."
Meanwhile, the architect will be gathering data for a later submission to the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system. The Lanford Brothers project is among fewer than 10 projects in the Roanoke-Blacksburg region seeking LEED certification.
Pearce was hired at Virginia Tech to integrate green building concepts into the curriculum.
"People from all camps are behind this because of the increasing evidence that buildings matter. They matter for business. They matter for human health and quality of life, and green's a way to do that better," Pearce said.
Ken Lanford, the company's president, sits on the industry board of Tech's Myers-Lawson School of Construction, of which Pearce's department is one part. He said building a green building is one focus.
But another focus is relationships.
"It's been more about trying to foster that relationship between Virginia Tech and business in the Roanoke Valley," Lanford said.
