Resnick Sustainability Center Highlights Campus-Wide Focus on Pressing Global Issues

As a new academic year gets underway at Caltech, part of the excitement on campus centers around the opening of the Institute's newest building: the Resnick Sustainability Center (RSC), which has been five years in the making. Located on the western edge of campus along Wilson Avenue, the striking four-story building will serve as a defining component of a major sustainability thrust at Caltech and strives to do something truly unique—to bring the entire campus together to address the warming planet's most pressing problems related to energy and resource utilization.

Energized by an unprecedented $750 million gift from Lynda and Stewart Resnick, through their foundation and The Wonderful Company, the campus-wide sustainability endeavor will provide Caltech scientists and engineers with the facilities, tools, and resources they need, as well as teaching laboratories and common meeting spaces, to foster breakthrough ideas and technologies that will help sustain life on Earth.

The RSC incorporates numerous advanced sustainability features, including but not limited to a high-performance exterior envelope, a fully glazed north atrium and western façade that maximizes natural light, solar shading fins that reduce heat gain, the incorporation of highly energy-efficient mechanical and electrical systems, and a striking mass timber frame that lowers embodied carbon. Outside, rooftop photovoltaic arrays generate power for research and operations, while native plantings and stormwater drywells increase the building's sustainability.