Residential life is offering 807 transfer students the opportunity to live in the new Village II on-campus apartments for Fall Quarter 2011.
The Village II — also known as The Village at Torrey Pines East — apartments use sustainable energy to power the building. Sustainable energy sources include wind-fueled cooling system, balcony shading and large windows for natural lighting, a solar water-heating system and a drip-irrigation system for native outdoor plants using recycled water.
The new apartments are located north of Eleanor Roosevelt College and adjacent to Village I apartments — which were completed in May 2009 and officially opened in January 2010 after two years of construction that costs $12 billion — in the north entrance of campus.
The apartments contain five residential buildings and two mixed-use buildings that will contain dining, a market and faculty office space. The Village II was completed mid-February and will house its first residents next fall.
Spanning 238,000 gross square feet, the new apartments are part of the North Campus Housing project — which includes 146 five- and six-bed student dwelling units.
Building 1 features a maintenance shop and interior bicycle parking, Buildings 2-5 contains a laundry facility and student meeting rooms and Buildings 6-7 will provide a dining facility, a market and faculty office spaces.
Although the North Campus Housing project provides an environmentally sustainable lifestyle, some students expressed mixed feelings.
“I’m kind of shocked they even made [the Village II] since they couldn’t even fill up the Village I the first year it opened,” Marshall College senior Steven Vanderberg said.
In each apartment, there is a living-dining kitchen area, shared bathrooms with low-flow fixtures.
The project qualifies for a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Gold application with the U.S. Green Building Council. It was built in partnership with Clark Design/Build of America and using recycled and locally-produced building materials.
The building uses natural ventilation ‚ which depends on the size of windows and outside temperature — to avoid using fan-powered ventilation. Sunshades installed in the path of sunrise and sunset prevent heat gain in the units, and windows facing west and south catch breezes, “scooping” air into the apartments and allowing natural light in.
The 300-kilowatt solar water-heating system absorbs solar energy through solar collectors attached to rooftops and shade structures on 6 out of 7 buildings.
Solar energy is transferred to non-drinkable water that flows to solar storage tanks, where heat is exchanged from the non-drinkable water to the drinkable water system.
“The most advanced feature of the Village II project is the solar water-heating system, which is one of the largest, if not the largest, installation at a North American university,” Aztec Solar CEO Ed Murray said in a statement. Aztec Solar helped install the solar water-heating system.
This qualifies UCSD for a cash rebate of up to $500,000 under the California Solar Initiative’s Thermal program. The project was funded solely by external financing via UC-issued bonds that will be repaid by student housing fees and from UCSD housing reserves.
The Village II landscaping does not use drinkable water. Porous paving is used for walkway areas, and storm water will be filtered to maintain the landscape design in place of drinkable water before connecting to sewer mains.
The cost of a single room for the 2011-12 academic year is estimated at about $10,800, while it costs about $10,200 to live in a double room. All rooms come with a dining plan of $2,220 or approximately $8.41 per day.
“The living arrangement is nice but it is expensive, Vanderberg said. “I think I’m done with the Village. I want to move off campus to save money. A lot of my friends have done that.”
According to Capitol Planning Director Cara Fladd, the Housing, Dining and Hospitality department’s goal is to house 50 percent of all students on campus — a 9-percent increase from the current 41 percent of the student population that lives on campus. Transfer students are guaranteed two years of housing at The Village.
The project is part of a four-year, $450 million capital program bringing more housing campus.
The Village I is the first housing on campus to provide single undergraduates with a 12-month housing option, as other on-campus residencies offer housing only for the academic year.
Additional reporting by Laira Martin.
