Health News: Top Stories

Going off the grid with ancient Hindu text as a guide
by Julie Bird

Charlotte Business Journal Translate This Article
16 July 2008

On 16 July 2008 Charlotte Business Journal reported: The Sustainable Living Center on the Maharishi University of Management campus in Fairfield, Iowa, USA will be the first building of its kind -- an entirely self-sustaining building using 'off-the-grid' concepts from Vedic texts that dictate building orientation, room placement, proportions, and type of materials. The university offers the country's only four-year degree in sustainable living. It is a joy for Global Good News service to feature this news, which indicates the success of the life-supporting programmes Maharishi has designed to bring fulfilment to the field of health.

The $2 million, 7,000-square-foot Sustainable Living Center 'will house classrooms, a research lab, greenhouse, a metal and wood workshop, kitchen and offices' and 'is planned as the centerpiece of the university's focus on sustainability', the Charlotte Business Journal reported.

The chairman of Maharishi University of Management's sustainable living/environmental science department, David Fisher, sees the Sustainable Living Center as a 'showplace attracting design and building professionals, academics and students from around the country while serving as a working facility', the article stated.

Kim Reitterer of Elm Engineering Inc. in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the sustainable engineer on the project. She is designing the mechanical operating systems 'that will allow the building to generate and use its own electricity, treat its own fresh water and wastewater, and conserve enough energy and water to be self-sustainable'.

The Charlotte Business Journal explained, 'Wind and solar energy will produce electricity, but there's also a backup biodiesel generator. Between the air conditioning, computers and a kitchen with ovens and ranges—uses that draw large amounts of electricity—Reitterer says a big part of her task is figuring out how to conserve as much energy as possible.'

The Charlotte Business Journal quoted her as saying, 'This building will be one of the first of its kind, so there isn't a whole lot of knowledge base around the country. We had to do a lot of searching.'

The search was for the materials and suppliers needed for the project. 'The building requires redundant mechanical systems to operate off the grid,' the article explained.

Innovative Design Inc., an architectural firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina, is designing the building.

The Charlotte Business Journal quoted Mike Nicklas, principal of Innovative Design, as saying, 'We're very in tune to design from a sustainability standpoint, but it's layering on top of another whole philosophy of design.'

The university, where students practise Transcendental Meditation, wanted the designers and builders to follow Vedic architectural concepts, which offer deeper insight into Western sustainability ideas.

The Charlotte Business Journal explained, 'That means, for example, orienting the building toward the east instead of the south, which makes daylighting and solar collection more challenging. Rainwater has to be collected from the building's north side, and wastewater must be discharged in a different direction.'

The Sustainable Living Center will have LED lighting, photovoltaic solar panels, a rainwater collection system, and a south-facing greenhouse that 'will generate heat and hot water through a solar-thermal system.'

'Light will also be captured and reflected by a window-lined pop-up section in the center of the building for the solar system,' the article said.

The building will be eligible to be certified at the platinum level by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) programme run by the US Green Building Council.

Global Good News comment:

For more about Vedic principles of architecture in harmony with Natural Law, please visit: Maharishi Sthapatya Veda .
Every day Global Good News documents the rise of a better quality of life dawning in the world and highlights the need for introducing Natural Law based—Total Knowledge based—programmes to bring the support of Nature to every individual, raise the quality of life of every society, and create a lasting state of world peace.

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