The Windy Hill School on the campus of Colby Sawyer College, built by North Branch Construction, has received LEED Silver Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Banwell Architects provided the design for the Windy Hill school.
Other LEED projects by North Branch include the $7.8 million Silver Certified Portsmouth Public Library in Portsmouth, the $18.9 million Gold Certified Fahey and McLane Residence Halls at Dartmouth College in Hanover, and North Branch Construction's own Silver Certified corporate headquarters in Concord.
The Windy Hill School program at Colby Sawyer is a College-Community Partnership providing families of the area with day-care, kindergarten and after-school programs serviced by the students and faculty of Colby-Sawyer's Social Sciences and Education Program. The new facility brings the program under one roof, which were formerly housed in the lower levels of the residence halls.
LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) is a self-assessing system designed for rating new and existing commercial, institutional, and high-rise residential buildings. It evaluates environmental performance from a "whole building" perspective over a building's life cycle, providing a definitive standard for what constitutes a "green" building. LEED is based on accepted energy and environmental principles and strikes a balance between known effective practices and emerging concepts. It is a feature-oriented system where credits are earned for satisfying each criteria. Different levels of green building certification are awarded based on the total credits earned.
North Branch Const. is a member of the USGBC and has been providing sustainable construction practices for its clients for throughout its 50 year history.