Recycled water put on display by PCC

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Buoys illustrate the water levels of an underground cistern at PCC's Willow Creek Campus.

Reclaiming greywater has become a cornerstone green construction practice, but a new building at the Portland Community College’s Willow Creek Campus in Beaverton puts the water recycling process in clear view.

At the entrance to the center, the first LEED platinum building in Washington County, three bright-orange buoy tubes protrude up from the ground like some sort of modern art sculpture. After a rainy spell, more of the tubes appear above ground. A dry week causes them to sink.

The buoys are floating on the rising and falling level in a 15,000-gallon cistern buried below ground that gathers the rainwater that falls on the building’s 33,000-square-feet roof. Excess water flows into a bioswale.

The building has an 800-gallon storage tank that draws from the cistern. The water is filtered, treated and used to flush toilets.

Scott Work, who managed the building process for contractor Skanska, estimates that for nine months out of the year, the reclamation system can provide enough greywater to supply the 100,000 square-foot building without drawing from the municipal water system.

"So much of what happens in LEED buildings is hidden behind the walls," said Kurt Lango, who designed the buoy-tube system for Lango Hansen Landscape Architects. "We’re always looking for ways to help people better understand what we’re doing."

Most grey water cisterns are hidden under ugly manholes.

Largo said the orange floating poles are unique to the Willow Creek building — and he doesn’t plan to replicate them in future projects.

"This is all part of a process of creating an interpretive landscape," Lango said. "Other projects will do it in different ways."

The Willow Creek Campus, which opened at the end of 2009, was funded in part by PCC’s 2008 bond measure.