Upgrading Living Spaces to Attract & Retain Students

Though we retained the building’s physical structure, our design resulted in a completely refurbished residence hall with all new lighting, HVAC, data, power, plumbing and fire protection systems. A major component of the project was the addition of a forced air heating and cooling system housed in a new rooftop penthouse. We installed three new air-handling units two 20,000 cfm units for the east and west sides of the facility and one 10,000 cfm energy recovery unit for the center core that features dedicated outdoor air supply (DOAS). To solve the air conditioning challenge, we cored large holes around the perimeter of the building and installed a duct system that distributes air vertically instead of horizontally.