The Stanford Green Dorm Project, a student group dedicated to building a new, state-of-the-art sustainable living residence at the University, has hired an architectural firm to begin planning construction.

The Green Dorm, the brainchild of students and faculty in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), selected San Francisco-based EHDD Architects after a round of presentations and interviews conducted over the summer.

“We now have commitment from the provost for the feasibility study,” said Lauren Dietrich, coordinator of the Green Dorm Project and a master’s student in the construction management program at CEE.

Although it is too soon to predict a date for the start of construction, the group hopes to have the study completed this winter.

“The group reviewed submittals from 12 firms,” explained master’s student Emily Leslie, a Green Dorm student representative. “We narrowed the list down to four and then interviewed teams from the four firms in person.”

EHDD specializes in complex, innovative building projects for schools and museums that incorporate environmental concerns. The firm’s past projects include the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Stanford’s own Carnegie Building — also an environment-friendly design — which was built in 2004.

EHDD Project Manager Brad Jacobson, is a Stanford alumnus and former Synergy resident who also teaches CEE’s green architecture class.

The Green Dorm has been in the works since last year, when the project was greenlighted by University Provost John Etchemendy. During the late spring and early summer some members of the original Green Dorm project team formed the current working group charged with the task of selecting architects for the next phase.

Several locations for the dorm are under consideration, but the favored site is the area behind the Row, which is now a parking lot for Bob, Xanadu and Casa Italiana

“The University master plan already had three new row houses slated for those sites, so it would be convenient to make one or all three green design,” Leslie explained.

“We’re really excited about this project,” said Project Designer Scott Shell. “It is a wonderful opportunity to advance the state of green building.”

Both Dietrich and Shell agreed that a major selling point for EHDD was the firm’s willingness to work with students and faculty in CEE.

“We definitely chose EHDD for their plan for incorporating user interest — student and faculty — throughout the design process,” Dietrich said.

Shell noted climate change and the maintenance of biodiversity as two major “challenges for the 21st century.”

“The project has multiple goals,” he said. “One is to be a site for demonstration and education about sustainable living. Another goal is for the University to showcase environment-friendly design that is economically maintainable.”

Shell also said that many pre-existing conservation technologies, such as solar panels, have well-known sunk costs that can be factored into the cost of adoption. The Green Dorm group, however, will afford a testing ground for experimental technologies,

“Some energy-efficient technologies have quick paybacks, but with this project, we also have the opportunity to try some of the new research out there,” he said. “During design and after construction, students and faculty will use the project as a test case to develop and evaluate some of the most promising innovations.”

Dietrich said that student initiative was the driving force behind the project.

“Our major emphasis is ongoing student involvement in exploring sustainable living options,” she said. “There will be myriad opportunities for student involvement during the upcoming feasibility study.”

Interested students are invited to attend the first Green Dorm Group meeting of the school year, this Thursday at 7 p.m. in Wallenberg Hall in 120. More information is available on the Green Dorm Website at: http://sustainability.stanford.edu/greendorm.