In recent years, numerous faculty members have incorporated sustainable design practices into their courses. The pavilion will offer space and long-term educational opportunities for exploring cutting-edge initiatives in sustainable design practices. The pavilion will be the hub of sustainable or green design, a place where students and faculty will be challenged to integrate such practices into their projects.

 

Further, sustainable design practices, which minimize or eliminate a building's negative impact on the natural environment, will be used in the construction of the King Pavilion. Its design will reduce energy, water and resource consumption and use renewable construction materials, creating a living laboratory. 

 

The intent is to construct an environmentally responsible structure and to accelerate the process of introducing sustainable behavior to the culture of the larger university community. Sustainable building design and ecological site planning are critical to this project. It serves as a model for what future buildings and landscape projects throughout the campus should aspire to, and as an inspirational sustainable design laboratory for the students who are the future of the design profession in Iowa and the nation.