Western Washington University in Bellingham has broken ground on a nearly $74 million electrical engineering and computer science building, the first carbon neutral academic facility in the region. Kaiser Borsari Hall is a “smart building” meant to exceed LEED standards for energy use, carbon, and other environmental indicators. …“The design of Kaiser Borsari Hall is a watershed moment for Washington state public facilities as the first all mass timber, zero-energy, and carbon neutral building on a university campus,” Anthony Gianopoulos at Perkins&Will, which designed the facility, said. The building will join a handful of other carbon neutral academic buildings in the nation. …Solar panels on the roof will generate all the 54,000-square-foot, four-story building’s electrical power, while local, sustainably harvested wood will be incorporated as part of the design to reduce the facility’s carbon footprint.