By Alex Ruf

See green — that is how one of the new additions to the UK campus is viewing the future.

The new Davis Marksbury Building, located on Rose Street, was recently awarded the prestigious LEED Gold award.

LEED is a rating system used to rate the environmental consciousness of a building. It is given out by the United States Green Building Council, a third-party nonprofit organization that aims to create a standard of energy efficiency in the U.S.

The Gold award is the second-highest ranking in the LEED system.

The Marksbury Building is the first to receive a LEED award on campus, and one of 11 buildings in Kentucky to recieve the award.

The building was created to make a state-of-the-art place where computer sciences work could be done.

“Given the College of Engineering’s role as a leader in advancing environmental-related research in efficient energy production, it is extremely appropriate that the Davis Marksbury Building — a building dedicated to engineering and computer science research — is not only the first LEED-certified building on UK’s campus, but a Gold-certified building as well,” said Thomas Lester, dean of the College of Engineering.

The building houses the Center for Visualization and Virtual Enviroments and the computer science program. The building is a large research and development sector of UK.

The Marksbury Building was designed to be efficient. The lighting uses a daylight harvesting system, which minimizes energy consumption.

Along with that system, the building’s roof is covered with photovoltaic panels, which power the building.

This futuristic design was created with a team of designers led by Rob Deal, manager of the Marksbury project.

“The Davis Marksbury Building is a testament that new UK projects can be both innovative and environmental responsive,” Deal said.

“My hope is that the new building is the benchmark by which all other new buildings are measured,” he said.

The open house for the Marksbury building will be held on Oct. 20, where students may take a tour of the building.