Living and Learning Center (LLC)
The LLC is the heart of the Center's outreach and community engagement. The LLC has hosted in partnership with local non-profits: public lectures on local history, conversations regarding gentrification, waterfront access, and other challenges facing our coastal communities, and open houses sharing the Center's research activities. In addition, the LLC has hosted regional and national meetings of research scientists and networks.
The LLC is also available to Bowdoin student organizations, academic departments, and other units for meeting and retreats.
The multipurpose room, which can accommodate 100 people, serves as a conference hall and classroom. There is also a smaller seminar room, which can comfortably accommodate eighteen people. Outside the LLC are picnic tables, Adirondack chairs, and a fire pit.
The LLC was certified by the Passive House Institute US, Inc, for its energy-efficient design that also ensures consistent and comfortable temperatures and healthy air quality. The LLC is super-insulated and airtight, with triple-paned windows, and is set up with a ventilation system and heat pumps for heating and cooling. Part of what makes passive structures so efficient is their ventilation systems recycle the exhausted, stale air to heat incoming fresh air. They also remove humidity.