News
April 19, 2006
A large ambiguous black box appeared between the Chemistry building and Gilmer Tuesday morning. The eight-by-eight-by-eight foot cube is part of an installation by the Green Grounds Group, said Architecture graduate student Chris David, head of the group's energy initiative.
"This box is actually meant to represent one week's worth of coal wasted due to lights being left on at night unnecessarily," David said.
The structure is composed of four plywood walls with "8x8x8" chalked on each side.
Architecture graduate student Kathy Cacciola described the project as "a group effort of brainstorming what this could look like."
Last fall, the group conducted a survey of nighttime electricity usage, in conjunction with Paul Crumpler, energy program manager for the University, David said.
"Basically what we did was we all got together around 10 o'clock in the evening and surveyed as many buildings as we could," said David.
David described the study as consisting of taking estimates of the number of lights left on unnecessarily at night in buildings around Grounds.
"For lighting, the best thing to do is turn off the lights when [people] leave," Crumpler said, describing possible energy-saving alternatives.