Kaiser Borsari Hall will be opening at the beginning of winter quarter. The building is located on the southeast edge of Western Washington University’s campus behind the Communications Facility.
Kaiser Borsari Hall will house the Electrical and Computer Engineering, Energy Science and Computer Science programs.
Electrical and Computer Engineering is one of Western’s fastest-growing programs, said program director Andy Klein. Since 2017, the program has seen cohort sizes increase from 24 to 60. While Western’s total enrollment dipped in recent years during the COVID-19 pandemic, the program’s enrollment continued to increase.
Even with 60-student cohorts, the program has to deny about one in four students who apply. The program doesn’t have immediate plans to increase cohort size, but the new building makes a future increase more likely, Klein said.
The new Kaiser Borsari Hall marks a step in the process of adding a master’s program for Electrical and Computer Engineering, Klein said. The master’s program is slated to be added in fall 2026, dependent on the hiring of two new faculty members.
Another benefit the building offers to the program is the improvement of collaborative spaces.
The Ross Engineering Technology building, the previous home of Electrical and Computer Engineering, wasn’t conducive to collaboration, Klein said. The tight hallways and lack of seating made it difficult for students to find places to work together, but the new building will offer more opportunities.
“The hallways are designed where there are natural little seating areas and nooks where students can tuck in and collaborate and just hang out,” Klein said.
Additionally, Kaiser Borsari Hall has breakout rooms and a student lounge.
Some aspects typically found in other buildings on campus will be missing, like large lecture halls and closets. Klein, whose previous office could serve as a small classroom, said he’ll have to adjust to a smaller office space than he’s used to. Though these are just “little things.”
The omission of these more luxurious features allow the building to be carbon neutral, a characteristic that made the building attractive to donors. Had Western not pursued carbon neutrality, there’s a possibility the building would have never become a reality, Klein said.
Kaiser Borsari Hall will be the first carbon-neutral building on Western’s campus, said Lisa Brennan, communications and marketing coordinator for Facilities Development and Operations at Western.
To achieve carbon neutrality, the architect company Perkins&Will designed the building with rooftop solar panels and a mass timber structure.
Mass timber achieves similar strength to steel with significantly lower weight and carbon footprint, Brennan said. Glue-laminated timber, or glulam, is used for beams and columns while cross-laminated timber is used for panels.
The siding of the building is built with Shou Sugi Ban, wood that has been charred. Brennan said this makes the wood resistant to insect or water damage, in addition to sequestering carbon.
Kaiser Borsari Hall will look to earn Zero Energy and Zero Carbon Certifications from the International Living Future Institute, an organization that promotes sustainability and ecological health.
To achieve the Zero Energy Certification, all of Kaiser Borsari Hall’s energy will need to be electric and supplied by on-site renewable energy, said Lisa Carey Moore, Living Future’s building team director. The certification will be awarded if the building can meet these requirements over a 12-month span.
To achieve the Zero Carbon Certification, Kaiser Borsari Hall’s energy use intensity must be 25% less than a standard building of a similar size over a 12-month span. The building’s carbon emissions must also be reduced by 10% compared to a building of similar size.
“What [Western] is demonstrating by pursuing these certifications is a commitment to climate pledges they have made,” Carey Moore said. “It's a commitment to demonstrating that they're taking action.”
Milo Whitman (he/him) is a campus news reporter for The Front this quarter. He is a news/ed journalism major and a film studies minor. You can reach him at milowhitman.thefront@gmail.com.
