"Everything has a function," said Pat Cornely, executive director of the Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies--from sound-absorbing panels in the walls to special shelves that bounce sunlight further into rooms to the windows with sweeping views of De Anza's athletic fields and the East Bay foothills. Even rainwater is used to help water a nearby grassy area.

"We want to keep going one step further environmentally," she said.

The two-story building is a testimony to that vision and the result of more than a decade of planning.

"I saw a link between green buildings and the loss of bio-diversity and energy policy," said Julie Phillips, a De Anza professor who helped conceive the building in the late1980s. At that time, De Anza students also began asking the school for more energy-efficient buildings.

With the help of funding from the Kirsch Foundation, money from De Anza's student government and the Measure E bond passed by voters in 1999, those early visions of a model facility have become a reality.

In addition to being an innovative energy-efficient "green" building, the building will also be a teaching tool for the school, one that could inspire conservation awareness among its users.

"The building teaches about energy, resources and conservation," Cornely said.

As part of that process, the building includes naturally lit classrooms and laboratories with distance learning capabilities, and large hallways that double as lecture and gathering spots. The center also has photovoltaic solar panels on its roof to harness the sun's energy, an east-west orientation that maximizes natural daylight (keeping the building cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter). And the furniture is made from recycled materials.

All of this is part of the building's broader goal of serving as an interactive, learning tool.

Students in the energy systems management program, for instance, will get hands-on training in managing the building's energy needs.

"We used to be nomads before; we've never had our own space to do this," Bob Malone, energy systems instructor, said.

Students can also apply their learning in the building's biodiversity and pollution prevention laboratories and on a balcony designed for bird and sky watching (an adjacent outdoor learning area has yet to be completed because of costs).

The need for such a building has become increasingly apparent. Studies have shown students learn better in naturally lit buildings. Green buildings also help reduce costs at a time of rocketing energy prices, and they reduce pollution (the U.S. Department of Energy has found buildings contribute 35 percent of carbon dioxide emissions).

There is also the need to increase conservation awareness, even at De Anza. In July, for instance, the Foothill-De Anza Community College District was fined $101,000 for improperly disposing of toxic waste.

"It's a good way to encourage environmental stewardship," Cornely said of the building. "For students, that can be life changing and enhance any degree they graduate with."