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Back to School in Green: Oregon State University Kelley Engineering Center
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Bob Schroeder, P.E., LEED® AP, Portland Associate Principal and
Sonya Salanti, Portland Marketing Coordinator
As summer fades, electrical and computer engineering students and faculty at Oregon State University can look forward to spending more time indoors, namely in the Kelley Engineering Center on the Oregon State University Campus. This is the first academic engineering building in the nation to achieve the LEED® Gold rating. The Center, which had its grand opening last fall, is a star example of green building design that combines smart sustainable building technology with innovative architectural design.
Glumac teamed with Yost Grube Hall Architects to design a building that fosters a collaborative work and study environment while meeting the criteria for a LEED® Gold rating. The four-story 153,000 sf building includes a soaring central atrium, daylight illuminated Graduate Research Assistants' offices, and perimeter office spaces located in close proximity. Open sky-bridges and stairwells provide access to the common areas, office spaces, laboratory and computer labs. The building also features a caf and open study areas.
Raised access floors allow for easy maintenance and upgrades of cables“a must for the rapidly changing environment of computer engineering. Emergency generators are on-call in the basement to back up sensitive equipment.
The building's mechanical and electrical systems employ many emerging technologies that respond to user comfort, energy efficiency and integrated design. Some of the notable sustainable design features of the building include:
- Underfloor displacement ventilation and electrical cabling to floor boxes makes efficient use of underfloor distribution and contributes to a clean look.
- The design uses the atrium as a stack-driven chimney and motorized windows at the perimeter offices that are automatically controlled with user override to allow offices and Graduate Research Assistants' office spaces to be naturally ventilated.
- In summer high albedo roof paint deflects radiated heat, and automated windows can be opened remotely at night to flush out the day™s heat.
- Building controls "sense" how many individual windows are open and adjust cooling and heating systems for maximum energy-efficiency.
- Daylight harvesting with direct/indirect lighting fixtures. Light shelves allow natural daylight to penetrate further into the building. The sophisticated daylight/dimming control system control lighting energy use, by providing lighting only when it™s required.
- A 24,000-Watt photovoltaic array tied to the electrical grid doubles as the cooling tower screenwall.
- An evacuated tube solar hot water collector system provides domestic hot water for the building at 70% utilization efficiency.
- A rainwater harvesting system feeds water closets and urinals to minimize water use. In winter, rain is channeled down from the center™s roof through the building™s landscaping planters into 16,500-gallon containers for use in the building™s non-potable water system. The outside plaza also features permeable tiling, reducing the amount of water flowing into city storm drains.
The building has been well received by the community, Oregon State University and its students as a demonstration project of green features and as a means of providing improved thermal comfort for its occupants.
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