Designing an energy efficient and comfortable building

The building has a gross area of 182,000 sq. ft. The building will contain a basement with 4 levels above grade. The spaces are distributed in general in the following manor: Server room, classrooms, a parking garage and mechanical and electrical rooms in the basement, The 1st and 2nd floors contain a mix of classrooms studios as well as office and support facilities; The 3rd and 4th floor contains the main administrative offices, faculty offices and ancillary support spaces. It was decided at an early stage in the design that occupant comfort would be a priority as well as energy conservation. The goal was to provide comfort levels of 10% PPD (Percentage of Person Dissatisfied) or less for each space and at the same time consume the least amount of energy against both California’s Title 24 requirements and ASHRAE 90.1-2007 for LEED points. The first step in creating comfortable spaces is with the architecture and not the conditioning systems. IBE spent considerable time working with the architects, analyzing different glazing alternatives and investigating the inside surface temperature for the glass as this drives the mean radiant temperature (MRT) in the occupied spaces. A dynamic comfort simulator was used that could analyze space conditions for a single day, month or year. Having a better understanding of the building shade characteristics and thermal conditions, the overall thermal comfort was improved in addition to reducing energy consumption by implementing some or all of the investigated strategies. Occupant spaces are conditioned by active beams and classrooms are conditions by radiant ceilings together with a variable volume ventilation system. The building includes the following features to increase the performance of the building to exceed Title 24 minimum standards by 37.9 percent: • High performance lighting systems in classrooms, seminar rooms, meeting room and offices, with occupancy sensors and daylight harvesting sensors. • High performance glazing • High efficiency frictionless chillers • Wall insulation increased to R-19 and roof insulation increased to R-30. • Daylight harvesting sensors. For the LEED submittal the percentage of Energy savings was 63.5% and the cost savings were 46.7%, which was good for 10 LEED points.