August 25, 2005
CT firm wins coveted 2006 ARC Award for Clark Biosciences building
The Hartford, CT, engineering firm vanZelm Heywood & Shadford Inc. recently was awarded the 2006 ARC Award from Consulting Specifying Engineer Magazine for its work on the Cathy '83 and Marc '81 Lasry Center for Bioscience at Clark University, which opened in January 2005.
Consulting-Specifying Engineer’s ARC Awards for Advancing, Reinvigorating and Cultivating Excellence in Engineering honor engineers and engineering firms that have incorporated unique mechanical, electrical and plumbing design elements into commercial, institutional and industrial building projects.
The 50,000 square-foot biology building, which was designed by Tsoi/Kobus and Associates, of Cambridge, and built by Consigli Construction Company of Milford, Mass., houses 12 research labs, support and office spaces for faculty and graduate students, 6 teaching laboratories, and several modern, multi-media classrooms. A strong sustainable focus has been employed in the design concepts for this building, which is expected to achieve LEED certification from the USGBC at the Silver level, according to Susan Labas, vanZelm Associate and Director of Marketing.
Due to the building’s heavy lab focus, heat recovery opportunities in the building’s ventilation systems were developed with the unique application of a “heat wheel” based total energy recovery system. This system is employed to recover typically lost energy from the lab exhaust systems and transfer to the 100 percent outdoor air lab supply air system.
Efficient integration of building orientation, glazing selection, shading, and interior lighting design utilizing dimmable fluorescent systems with photo sensor control, was incorporated to minimize the use of electrical energy for interior lighting when natural daylight is available.
VanZelm reports energy usage for this building has been modeled to reflect an energy use reduction below ASHRAE 90.1 (1999) threshold criteria by more than 40 percent.
You can learn more about this project by visiting the Clark University Science Department Website at http://www.clarku.edu/sciences/.
Clark University is a private, co-educational liberal-arts research university with 2,000 undergraduate and 600 graduate students. Since its founding in 1887 as the first all-graduate school in New England, Clark has challenged convention with innovative programs such as the International Studies Stream, the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the five-year BA/MA programs with the fifth year tuition-free for eligible students.
Angela M. Bazydlo
Associate Director of Media Relations
Clark University
Worcester, Mass.
phone: 508-793-7635
www.clarku.edu
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