High Performing Buildings - Summer 2012 - (Page 66)

© Snap This Photography, Fort Wayne, Ind. © Snap This Photography, Fort Wayne, Ind. Top left The existing window openings were maintained, and the new walls were framed to accommodate the new spray foam and wood cellulose blown-in insulation. Top right The President’s new conference room is accented with salvaged wood from the existing building and decorated with U.S. President portraits from the early era of the building’s life. Below Retaining the building’s original window and door openings helps preserve the historic nature of the building and allows daylight. The new window assemblies are high-performance, double-pane, low-e, metal-clad wood windows with an integral thermal break system. fluorescent lamps; however, this is not a concern with LED fixtures. As a result, the control strategy is more aggressive and only allows for a two-minute delay before lights are turned off. This reduces energy for short trips to the water cooler, restroom, or co-worker’s office, most of which are within a normal time-out period of 10 or 20 minutes. In a few cases, the sensors were turning off on staff who were deep in thought with little or no movement to keep the lights on, but as time passed, the self-adapting sensors became more accurate in detecting the occupants in the space. The control strategy extends to the hydraulic elevator that shuts down when not used. Lights in the cab also shutdown when unoccupied. In a few of the spaces that have large amounts of natural daylight and no specific occupant to take ownership of the dimmer, daylight harvesting sensors automatically control the lighting levels. For the first several months, many questioned if the sensors actually did anything because nobody could detect if the lights actually dimmed or not. Summer 2012 © Viridian Architectural Design, Fort Wayne, Ind. We used a highly sophisticated method involving a “cup on a stick” and “super-bright” flashlight to fake out the sensors to verify their operation. Doing so, we observed that the lights were in fact dimmed, and with the cup held over the sensor, the room lights came up to full output after a short delay. Again with the flashlight pointed into the sensor, the light output dropped down again. Given that none of the occupants could detect the lights were changing their output, we consider the installation a success. Conclusion When first contacted about improving the existing building, it was easy for the design team to see 66 HIGH PERFORMING BUILDINGS Before the university purchased it in 1953, the campus belonged to Concordia Theological Seminary. A stained-glass window from the Concordia chapel was purchased from a private buyer and installed in the president’s new of ce on the formerly unoccupied third oor of the Uytengsu Center.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of High Performing Buildings - Summer 2012

High Performing Buildings - Summer 2012
Commentary
Contents
High Tech High Chula Vista
Kiowa County Schools
Northwest Maritime Center
La Reunion’s ENERPOS
Wilfred Uytengsu Sr. Center
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High Performing Buildings - Summer 2012