National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), one of the premier institutions in Taiwan, recently revealed that the Y. S. Sun Green Building Research Center (Magic School of Green Technology), the first energy-saving and zero-carbon building in Taiwan, will be inaugurated on Jan. 12, in the university’s Li-Hsing Campus in Taina.

In a press release, NCKU informed that the inauguration ceremony of the Y. S. Sun Green Building Research Center will be held in the Conference Hall on the second floor of the green building, where Founder Gunter Pauli of Zero Emissions Research Initiative; President Akihisa Iida from OM Solar Japan; and Director An-Gang Hu of Center for China Study at Tsinghua University, Beijing, as well as national green architecture scholars and architects, will attend the ceremony.

Y. S. Sun Green Building Research Center, which creates innovative, clean and efficient energy solutions, is the latest development for NCKU. The institution boasts of many past achievements in the green technology sector. According to the academic ranking of the internationally renowned publisher company Elsevier, NCKU ranks 19th globally in the research papers of Alternative Energy and is the only Taiwanese institution among the global top 25 list, achieving numerous green energy technology achievements and setting a new milestone for NCKU's green energy research.

The university proudly revealed that the new building is on its way to acquire the highest green building certificates from Taiwan's Ecology, Energy Saving, Waste Reduction and Health (EEWH) rating system and the U.S. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system.

The Y. S. Sun Green Building Research Center will serve as NCKU's international conference center. This futuristic building will reflect the universities’ achievements in the discipline of green building research. The building reportedly utilizes economical and efficient green building technologies such as energy-conservation, renewable energy, waste reduction, water recycling and nano photo-catalysts.

“Even though National Cheng Kung University has many innovative teaching research buildings, the Y. S. Sun Green Building Research Center, donated mostly by Chairman Bruce Cheng of Delta Electronics, has a unique significance. Representing an innovative architectural method, concept and transformation, it does not only symbolize the enterprises' concerns for the global ecology and their contributions to human well-being, it also signifies the beginning of NCKU marching towards a green era,” Michael Ming-Chiao Lai, president of National Cheng Kung University, said in his opening address.

The Y. S. Sun Green Building Research Center, which draws inspiration from Noah’s Ark on architectural aspects and looks like spaceship in Star Wars, with a leaf-like solar panel on the roof of the spaceship, ventilation towers with chimney, as well as railings, handrails and balconies, employs the LED energy-saving light bulbs and solar panels produced by Delta Electronics and other related enterprises. The project reportedly mobilized four top university professors who led 12 master and doctoral students to participate in the experiment of the construction of a never-seen-before green building.

The university held an inauguration ceremony on Dec. 31, in the first floor of the Computing and Network Center, Cheng-Kung Campus for its cloud computing service which is scheduled to kick off in January.

Lai, Senior Executive Vice-President Hwung-Hweng Hwung and Director Ce-Kuen Shieh of Computing and Network Center, pressed the start button together in the inauguration ceremony.