Oregon School District orders 20 green portable classrooms       

When Sergio Palleroni and Margarette Leite, Oregon BEST faculty in the Portland State University Dept. of Architecture, set out to design a 'greener' version of the musty, drafty, dimly lit portable classrooms that are so ubiquitous on school grounds across the country, they didn't expect an Oregon school district (Gervais) would order 20 of the units sight unseen. The green portables feature many more windows, innovative ventilation, and other green technologies, including phase-change materials in the walls.  

Blazer Industries, a modular building company in Aumsville, Oregon, is busy constructing the first 20 units, including one that has been on display (to raves!) at Greenbuild in San Francisco this month. Listen to the full Oregon Public Broadcasting story by Rob Manning.

Each year, the Sustainable Cities Initiative at the University of Oregon pairs an Oregon city with a cross-disciplinary team of students to tackle sustainability-related issues the city is addressing. Launched just three years ago, the program is already winning awards and drawing national recognition.

To date, more than 200,000 student hours have been logged on 40+ projects in three cities: Gresham, Springfield, and Salem. It saved the city of Salem $400,000 a year in garbage fees thanks to work by students in an industrial ecology class. The program is currently accepting applications from Oregon cities to be its next partner.  

The New York Times called the initiative, which is co-directed by Oregon BEST researchers Nico Larco and Marc Schlossberg, "...perhaps the most comprehensive effort by a U.S. university to infuse sustainability into its curricula and community outreach."

Oregon TECH student teams with professor on new solar technology

When Adam Burwell first heard his Oregon TECH professor Feng Shi give a lecture about low-cost, concentrated solar power, it ignited an entrepreneurial spark in him, and the pair launched a new company, SolenSphere Renewables.

Their design marries two technologies: photovoltaic solar cells and solar thermal. Sunlight strikes a satellite-shaped dish made of recycled materials, condensing the light and reflecting it to a smaller, opposing mirror. The smaller mirror focuses a beam of light onto a three-layered solar cell from Spectrolab, which turns the light into electricity. Burwell says, "Our product will compete with flat-panel prices at efficiencies three times higher, and provide thermal energy to boot." Read more. 

Tiny biochemical factories can produce more than just energy   

Oregon State University professor of chemical engineering and Oregon BEST researcher Greg Rorrer works with diatoms, a type of algae that builds shells of glass in myraid shapes.

Rorrer's research has drawn interest ranging from National Geographic to the National Science Foundation, which recently awarded his department a $2 million grant to study the tiny, photosynthetic organisms that can produce not only oil for biofuels, but byproducts like glucosamine and titania, a mineral used in high-performance solar cells. Read more. 

The University of Oregon's School of Architecture & Allied Arts has been selected as the nation's number one program for Sustainable Design Education in the 2013 report of architecture schools. The top-ranked program has been recognized multiple times as a leader in sustainable design education. The Design Intelligence 2013 issue of America's Best Architecture & Design Schools recently released the rankings of architecture, interiors, landscape architecture, and industrial design schools. Read more.