Johns Hopkins' blueprint for merging sustainability with student wellness in facility design

Higher education faces dual mandates: achieve aggressive carbon reduction targets while addressing mounting student mental health needs. The Bloomberg Student Center at Johns Hopkins demonstrates how these pressures converge into opportunity. Join this session for the first-ever presentation on this LEED Platinum project delivering quantifiable environmental performance—heavy timber structure, carbon-sequestering concrete, expansive photovoltaics, rainwater harvesting. Presenters illustrate the results of a 1,500-student engagement that shaped programming for belonging and wellbeing. They reveal how life cycle analysis, daylighting strategies, and material health decisions simultaneously advance decarbonization goals and cognitive performance. They share measurable outcomes linking sustainable infrastructure to social connection, demonstrating that environmental stewardship and human-centered design aren't competing priorities but interdependent imperatives driving the future of campus development.