Newtown Classroom & Student Services Building

Bluegrass Community & Technical College (BCTC) embarked on the creation of a new Lexington campus with the design of this four-story building on the former site of Eastern State Hospital. The LEED Gold academic and administrative building includes computer classrooms, lecture classrooms, learning commons, a science lab, a film production studio and faculty and support spaces. Academic programs include Business, Computer Science and Information Systems, Film Production and Education. Other programs and services include the Learning Commons, Student Services Center, Career Center and Administrative offices. Flexible spaces were created to enable the building to adapt as the campus grows, maximizing potential for partnerships with the downtown community and encouraging community use.

The building has a full basement, which decreased the amount of fill material that was required, while brick and concrete from the existing buildings that were demolished were crushed and reused as fill material under the parking lots. A highly reflective roof lowers cooling costs while simultaneously reducing the heat island effect within its urban context. High efficiency plumbing fixtures reduce the building’s use of potable water by 32%, and drought-resistant, native plants that don’t require irrigation were used in the landscape. Through careful management, 95% of the construction waste material was diverted from the waste stream, resulting in 13,287 tons of material that did not end up in a landfill.