Photo © Photo © Rick Keating
KEY PARAMETERS
137,000 ft2 (12,700 m2)
Eugene, Oregon
Willamette River Valley
COMPLETED: October 2003
COST: $41 million
ANNUAL ENERGY USE (BASED ON SIMULATION): 62 kBtu/ft2 (705 MJ/m2)—39% reduction from base case.
ANNUAL CARBON FOOTPRINT (PREDICTED): 10 lbs. CO2/ft2 (50 kg CO2/m2).
PROGRAM: A four-story addition connecting three preexisting buildings, consisting of an atrium/thoroughfare, a cafe, public meeting rooms, classrooms, and offices.
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LILLIS TEAM
OWNER: University of Oregon www.uoregon.edu
ARCHITECT AND INTERIOR DESIGNER: SRG Partnership www.srgpartnership.com
COMMISSIONING AGENT: Solarc Architecture & Engineering www.solarc-ae.net
ENGINEER: Degenkolb Engineers www.degenkolb.com (structural); Balzhiser & Hubbard Engineers www.bhengineers.com (MEP)
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: Cameron McCarthy Gilbert Scheibe www.c-m-g-s.com
ENERGY/COMMISSIONING: Solarc Architecture & Engineering www.solarc-ae.net
LIGHTING: Benya Lighting Design www.benyalighting.com
ACOUSTICAL: Altermatt Associates www.altermatt.com
PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS: Solar Design Associates www.solardesign.com
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Lease Crutcher Lewis www.lewisbuilds.com
SOURCES
METAL/GLASS CURTAINWALL: Vistawall CW-600 (with PV) www.vistawall.com
ROOFING: Stevens Hi-Tuff EP Fleece adhered TPO www.stevensroofing.com
INTERIOR AMBIENT LIGHTING: Smedmarks Minisize T5 www.smedmarks.se; Zumtobel/Staff Claris www.zumtobelstaff.us; Finelite Series 8 www.finelite.com; Translite Systems Liana www.translite.com; Leucos Modulo www.leucos.com
CONTROLS (INTEGRATED LIGHT & SHADE): Lutron Grafik 6000 www.lutron.com
PHOTOVOLTAICS: Custom glassintegrated PVs: Saint-Gobain (curtainwall & skylights) www.saint-gobain.com
FLAT ROOFTOP POLYCRYSTALLINE PV ARRAYS: Sharp solar.sharpusa.com
PEEL AND STICK PV MEMBRANE: UniSolar www.uni-solar.com
MOTORIZED WINDOW SHADES: Lutron Sivoia QED www.lutron.com
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The Lillis Business complex was first conceived as a small addition to the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business to relieve some space constraints and provide new classrooms. During the programming phase, however, the notion of tearing down a two-story brick connector and replacing it with something larger was proposed. That connector, which obstructed a main circulation route, was “one of the more reviled buildings on campus,” says Fred Tepfer, of the university’s planning office. The new complex, with its four-story atrium, provides much more space and amenities than were originally envisioned and unclogs the circulation route at the same time.
As the scope of the project grew, so did the project team’s green aspirations. Faculty and students from the College of Business had identified sustainability as a key business strategy for companies of the future. “They came to us asking for a building that showed them how to think in a fresh way about those business decisions,” reports Kent Duffy, AIA, design principal for the project for SRG Partnership. While SRG had implemented various green measures on its projects, the company “hadn’t had a chance to put them together in one building,” according to Duffy. He jumped at the opportunity, and describes the process that ensued as “a career-transforming experience.”
A multidisciplinary design team worked collaboratively on the Lillis project from the beginning. Many of the green goals were both proposed and developed by G. Z. (Charlie) Brown, FAIA, a professor in the university’s Department of Architecture and the director of the Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory. Oregon requires the engagement of a construction manager during design for large state-funded projects. This model “works well if you have a good team,” says Matt Pearson, project manager for the general contractor Lease Crutcher Lewis. “It’s rare that you have a team work as well as that team did.”
Although tightly constrained on all sides, the site is elongated from east to west, making it well oriented for daylighting. Initially, the faculty was skeptical about the potential for bringing daylight into the classrooms due to concerns about contrast on the projection surfaces at the front of the rooms. Under Brown’s direction, students created a computerized daylighting simulation showing the distribution of light levels in a classroom. In addition, a classroom was mocked up in the existing building prior to its demolition to give users a chance to experience the proposed space. After the study revealed that flipping the orientation of the classrooms would allow for plenty of light in the seating area while keeping the projection surfaces dark, the College of Business faculty bought the idea. Upon seeing this solution for the business school classrooms on the second floor, the university chose a similar layout for its general-use classrooms on the first floor as well.
Brown’s team also worked with lighting designer James Benya and lighting controls supplier Lutron Electronics to develop the controls strategy. Lillis represents the first time that Lutron provided integrated controls for lighting and shading devices, according to Duffy, and the results set a new direction for the company. The shades expand upward from the bottom of the windows, keeping the tops of the windows exposed for optimum daylighting. Flipping a light switch in the classroom opens the shades and turns on the lights, but the lights are dimmed to 10 percent of their full brightness unless additional illumination is needed.
Eugene’s relatively mild climate makes it ideal for natural ventilation and night flushing. The building uses different ventilation strategies in different locations, including 100 percent natural ventilation (no mechanical cooling or ventilation air) in the atrium and faculty offices on the north, hybrid natural and mechanical ventilation and cooling in the classrooms, and 100 percent mechanical ventilation and cooling in the faculty offices on the south.
Extensive computer modeling revealed that the thermal mass needed for the night flushing strategy could be met with a steel structure by adding thin slabs in key locations. Without this modeling, a concrete structure might have been selected, adding more than a million dollars to the cost. Mass was added to selected indoor surfaces, and special plenums were created to maximize the contact between the ventilation and the surfaces of the thermal storage mass.
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| The big atrium space in the middle is filled with people all the time.”
Financing the photovoltaic (PV) systems was a challenge that was overcome only when a representative of the local utility convinced the state energy office to allow the university to transfer tax credits to an outside donor. Ultimately, the building-integrated PVs in the curtain wall make up just 13 percent of the building’s total of 45 kilowatts (kW) of PVs. In reality they deliver even less, because a big yellow buckeye tree largely shades half the wall. (PV cells in a panel deliver only as much electricity as the least productive cell in each row, so shading a panel reduces its output more significantly than the amount of shading might suggest.) Most of the solar electricity at Lillis is generated by a large array of conventional panels mounted flat on the rooftop; the four systems together supply about 10 percent of the building’s predicted electricity demand.
Lease Crutcher Lewis managed the construction waste by sorting for valuable materials, such as metals and cardboard, on-site, and commingling the remainder, which was then sorted at a dedicated facility off-site. “Eugene is unique—one of the easiest places to recycle waste,” says Pearson. The preexisting building that was demolished to make room for Lillis was largely ground into rubble, which was used as fill for other projects in town.
While most users of Lillis are thrilled with the building, a few situations have created significant challenges for the facility managers. Tepfer is frustrated that the commissioning process took a long time to complete, leading to complaints from some occupants about problems that should have been resolved prior to occupancy. The natural ventilation and night flushing strategies have been especially challenging for a commissioning process that typically focuses on mechanical equipment. Students who investigated the building under Professor Alison Kowk, using simple, homegrown tools, “have provided more useful information than the commissioning,” complains Tepfer.
To some extent, complaints about comfort are exacerbated by a design decision to provide offices on the south side of the corridor with mechanical cooling and fixed windows, while offices on the north got operable windows but no air-conditioning—a situation that Tepfer describes as “a Faustian deal.”
Anticipating that the stack effect in the atrium may not consistently provide enough of a pressure differential to drive the natural ventilation process, the design team identified smoke evacuation fans in the atrium roof as a means of enhancing the airflow. The fans were outfitted with variable-speed drives so that they could be operated at low speed to improve the ventilation without a large energy penalty. Unfortunately, the controls on those drives were not configured in a way that activates the fans appropriately; once the control strategy for those fans is refined, the comfort on the upper floors should improve. Similarly, the fourth-floor auditorium is being retrofitted with ceiling fans, according to Duffy, to alleviate summertime discomfort: “We thought that the stack effect was going to be so successful that we wouldn’t need those fans.”
Mostly, though, the university’s experience with the building has been overwhelmingly positive. “People really love the building,” says Tepfer. “Good daylighting makes happy people.” G. Z. Brown agrees: “The big atrium space in the middle is filled with people all the time,” and the toplit lecture hall on the top floor is “one of the more sought- after lecture halls on campus.” |
