project of the month
College of Business, Indiana State University
Terre Haute, Indiana
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The Indiana State College of Business will find its new home in the Terre Haute Federal Building that was constructed in the 1930’s. This Art Deco building once housed the Federal courts and post office and is currently undergoing its third phase of renovation (Phase 1 included corridor and exterior restoration work, Phase 2 included construction of a new south side entrance and development of a new contract post office).
The project has been on hold for over two years waiting on State funding. Approval was received in September to finish the project, which was in the Construction Document phase. At that time, the Owner made several plan changes and made the decision to go from a stand-alone VAV mechanical system to a VAV system connected to the campus steam and chilled water plan. A goal of the project is to achieve LEED silver certification. With the change in mechanical system decision (which doesn't improve over the ASHRAE 90.1 baseline) and the existing building envelope (with poorly insulated windows), early energy modeling suggests that the project will only achieve the 5% prerequisite for energy on the project. The 5% threshold is being achieved by replacing the existing roof and 1 ½” of insulation, with a new white roof utilizing 4” of insulation. Even though energy points make up a large portion of the LEED rating scale, this project will still achieve a Silver rating in large part due to its siting in a dense urban fabric and its reuse of an existing structure. The design team is also looking to use water-efficient plumbing fixtures, highly controllable building systems (individual thermostat controls and occupancy sensors), and innovation credits including green furnishings, acoustical wall separations for classrooms, and using the building as a teaching tool. Considering the lack of credits for energy performance it is an impressive feat to achieve LEED Silver for this project. Congratulations to the team for thinking outside of the box.
news
October 2010 - Sustainable Stan Award Winner
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| Deb Kunce, AIA, LEED AP |
Deb Kunce, Program Manager here at Schmidt Associates earned this month's Sustainable Stan Award for her efforts in educating building users on the benefits of sustainable design. She helped produce a flash presentation that explains what has been accomplished with the building design and how users will benefit from it. It also helps users understand how they should use their facility to keep it sustainable. This is a great tool to educate the public on sustainable design and its impact on people's daily lives. Great job Deb.
In May 2010, Indiana adopted ASHRAE 90.1 2007 as their Energy code. This energy code modifies the requirements for building envelopes to achieve higher thermal values. Schmidt Associates had been tracking thermal values for their standard wall designs prior to acceptance of the new code, and had already met the requirements. However, to improve the thermal efficiency of our designs the standards have been tweaked to exceed ASHRAE 90.1 by 20% to 40%. But designers cannot just look at the components (walls, roofs, windows, etc.) of a building singularly. A building energy model needs to done to examine how all of these components work together as well as layout and orientation to the sun and wind, etc. affect the overall thermal efficiency of the design.
events
- Carpool to Work day: tbd soon
- Thermal Comfort/Fresh Air Day: tbd soon - while the temp. outside is nice
- Re-tie-rement Swap Party - this fall or not at all
opinion
Modifications to building envelopes to improve thermal efficiency will be challenged by Owners and Construction Managers during the design process, especially in a value-engineering mode. The best way to prove these modifications make a difference is to do early energy models for the building design. There are costs associated with increasing the thermal performance of the building envelope, but these increases should be weighed against the operational costs of the facility and evaluated on their payback rate (how long will it take to pay off the difference using the money saved from the energy costs). Sustainable design will continue to be contested especially in a tough economy. It is our responsibility as designers to inform Owners how the building envelope affects building performance. Every building will likely be different - but we have the tools to tell us what makes sense to make higher performance facilities. Analyze away people - just do it early to save yourself headaches later.
Sincerely,
Sustainable Stan
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