“If humans are natural,” Emerson once asked, “are all things made by humans part of nature?”

They would be if we built them like Catawba College’s new Center for the Environment.

Tucked in the woods beside the Robertson College Community Center off West Innes Street, the building represents more than a college department’s new facility. In its program, siting, design and materials, this is truly a Center for the Environment.

“This may be the most significant building built in this state for a long time,” Catawba President Fred Corriher Jr. told a recent group of visitors. The principles of sustainable or “green”design employed here could have an impact on many a building to come.

That could include —if state education leaders were open-minded enough —some of the $3.1 billion in new construction the university and community college systems are about to undergo. Local public school officials also should visit this structure with an eye toward the elementary schools they have on the planning board, and the sixth county high school that at this moment is just a twinkle in a few leaders’ eyes.

The 20,000-square-foot building cost $5.7 million —and it came in under budget, architect Karen Alexander says.

But you hardly get the feeling anyone skimped. Strolling along the center’s corridors is not unlike taking a walk in the woods. Classrooms and offices line one side of the hall, but the other side is a wall of glass, opening a lifesize window to the lush green world of Catawba’s 187-acre Ecological Preserve. If ever there was a place where students would be mindful of earth, air, trees and wildlife, this is it.

Alexander worked with Dr. John Wear Jr., director of the center, to design the building from the bottom up, talking with students and faculty first about what they needed and wanted in this new structure. They didn’t want to be stuck in a dark room studying the environment.

Much of the environmentally friendly design is not obvious to the eye.

Insulation in the walls is made up of shredded newspapers.

Beams that span broad expanses are laminated wood waste, not new-cut timber.

The carpeting has 100 percent recycled rubber backing, and the carpet tiles can be interchanged —and sent back for recycling.

The bamboo flooring in the library is considered a renewable source.

The building is heated and cooled geothermically, with the help of a system that’s actually under the Robertson Center’s parking lot.

Photo-voltaic panels on the roof absorb the sun’s rays to assist the electrical system. Solar panels heat the domestic hot water.

Other touches showcase the beauty of natural materials:Indian slate floors, stone fireplaces, paneling made of five different wood species, painstakingly stained and assembled to create a harmonious pattern of wood grains.

And not all classes have to be conducted inside. Decks and an observation tower beckon groups outside.

The commitment to protecting the environment came across in the design and the materials —and even in the construction process. Wagoner Construction employed Catawba students as waste managers and gave them a goal:Recycle 70 percent of the construction project’s waste.

They recycled 98 percent.

Though the building won’t be furnished and in full use until fall, Wear already has quite a gem to show off.

“It takes a community to do things like what you see here today,”Wear proudly told his first official visitors, fellow members of the Salisbury Rotary Club.

The center started with Catawba’s environmental program, which has quickly grown in breadth, depth and stature. Then, Wear said, it won the support of the board of trustees, headed by Tom Smith. And it received support from one of the state’s most committed conservationists, Fred Stanback. His mother, Elizabeth, gave millions to the project.

William McDonough, an internationally known architect and advocate for the environment, could have been setting the stage for the new Center for the Environment when he addressed the Foundation for the Carolinas’ annual meeting in downtown Charlotte back in February.

“Look at us,” he said. “We are in the darkness, shoveling fossil fuels into the mouths of boilers or producing nuclear isotopes so we can sit here and talk about fossil fuels and nuclear isotopes. We are in the dark. The sun in shining out there.”

Catawba’s environmental studies students will be accused of no such hypocrisy. They will sit in the sun, and dream of ways to bring others out of the dark.

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Elizabeth G. Cook is editor of the Salisbury Post.