Kent State University Art Building

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Kent State UniversityArt Building

• Eric Sauer
• Environmental Technology III
• Prof. Adil sharag-Eldin

The secret life of Buildings
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The Kent State Art Building
Built in 1971 Architect Tony Parsons Designed by
art faculty for the School of Art Houses the
school of art, galleries of both student and
professional work, and presents six major
exhibits a year
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The building was designed by John Andrews
Associates of Toronto, and completed in 1971. It
is a simple post-beam construction. There are no
supporting walls in the building. The translucent
walls are fiberglass and were manufactured by
Kalwall Corporation in CT. They were supposed to
be treated for UV effects every seven years, but,
of course, the University never coated them, so
you can see some peeling in places. As
insulation, Kalwall does not work well at all
the metal strips that hold the walls in place are
cold in winter and hot in summer.
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Even with the Kalwall panels admitting light into
the building, electric light is still a
necessity. Each classroom, studio space, and
gallery is equipped with enough electrical
lighting to effectively light the space without
any daylighting. Many of the rooms are equipped
with motion sensors that automatically turn off
the lights when no people are occupying the room
for a certain amount of time. All lights in the
building are T8, 32-watt fluorescent lamps.
There are no dimming circuits on any of the
lights, and there is very little light control in
the rooms. The buildings floorplan is designed
in a zigzag configuration to allow two exterior
walls in many of the rooms. This allows for a
maximum amount of daylight to enter the room
through the exterior walls.
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About Kalwall translucent wall panel systems
Kalwall is formed by permanently bonding, under
heat and pressure, a specially formulated,
fiberglass reinforced face to a grid core
constructed of interlocked, extruded structural
aluminum or composite I-beams.
the panels can be infilled with translucent
fiberglass insulation "batts." Optional thermally
broken panels yield the ultimate in energy
performance and condensation control. "U" factor
performance ranges from a standard .29 to include
options from .53 to .10 in the standard 2-3/4
inch (70 mm) panel thickness.
Millions of prismatic glass fibers imbedded in
the faces of Kalwall refract sunshine, and even
gray daylight, in a balanced, diffuse wash of
glare-free, usable light.
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About Kalwall translucent wall panel systems
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objective
The goal is to determine how well the daylighting
provided by the translucent panels works with the
electrical lighting system to provide light for
the tasks to be performed within the building.
The art building employs a Kalwall Translucent
Wall Panel System on most exterior walls and
about half of the roof to provide light to the
rooms inside. This project analyzes how well
this natural system works in conjunction with the
electrical lighting systems in the building.
When done properly, daylighting can reduce the
need for electrical lights and reduce the amount
of energy used to cool a building. The overall
objective of this project is to determine if the
Kent State Art Building achieves any of those
goals.
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Do the translucent panels provide adequate
lighting to meet human needs?
Visibility and task performance Visual comfort
Mood and atmosphere Aesthetic judgement Health
safety and well being Social communication
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Hypothesis
My original hypothesis is that the translucent
panels alone, during the day, will not provide
enough light appropriate for an art studio space.
The panels will minimize the additional light
required, and thus significantly reducing energy
consumption in the building. Upon investigation
of the spaces, it is evident that additional
artificial lighting is almost always required.
The panels may reduce the amount of artificial
light required, but the light control is very
poor in the spaces, the lights have to be all the
way on or all the way off. Some rooms even have
motion sensing lights that come on as soon as
someone enters, thereby defeating the purpose of
having natural lighting. My hypothesis, thus
far, still follows my original idea that the
translucent panels alone will not provide
adequate light for an art studio space.
Daylighting must work in conjunction with the
electrical lighting systems in order to be
successful in building. Both these lighting
systems, as a pair, do not function together to
adequately light the spaces and conserve energy
use throughout the building.
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To research how well the art studio spaces were
being lit by the translucent panels and by the
electrical lighting, one of the first tasks was
to take measurements of how much light was
actually in the spaces. Using the Minolta
Illuminance Meter, I took light level readings of
several studio spaces throughout the building.
Readings were taken during one sunny day and one
cloudy day. On each day I took two sets of
readings from several points of each space, one
with the electrical lights off and one with the
electrical lights on. I then compared these
readings with the standards set forth by the
IESNA.
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third floor studio. This studio space is
approximately 4500 square feet. All translucent
panels along most of the walls have been covered
up to no longer permit light to come through.
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third floor studio. Location of skylights.
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third floor studio. Location of luminaires.
With natural light only, on a sunny day, the
average footcandles throughout the spaces was
239fc. With all of the lights on, there were
392fc in the space. According to the IESNA, at
least 300 footcandles is required for the
performance of visual tasks of low contrast and
very small size over a prolonged period. This
studio is used primarily for painting and
drawing, where it is crucial that there be enough
light to accurately see what one is doing.
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small drawing area on the second floor. This
room is only about 800 square feet, but had 130
fluorescent lamps to illuminate the space.
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The average amount of natural light in the space
was 290 footcandles. With the electrical lights
on, the average reading was 458 fc. This is an
area were student come to do very exacting work,
such as graphic design. By IESNA standards, an
area such as this should provide 400-500
footcandles of light. So we see here that the
natural light is not sufficient for the tasks to
be performed.
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sculpting room on the first floor. This room is
approximately 1500 square feet, and about 20 feet
high. The north and west walls are constructed
completely of Kalwall, and 50 percent of the roof
is also Kalwall. The are 176 fluorescent lamps
in the space, mounted 15 feet above the floor.
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The average reading in the space with only
natural light was 131 fc. With electrical
lighting the average reading was 239 fc. In this
space the lighting falls well short of the
recommended 400-500 fc.
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Surveys 30 students and professors. 85
percent - the translucent panels alone do not
provide enough light to perform the necessary
tasks. 100- need electrical lighting during
daylight hours for art tasks either most or all
of the time. 50- Light for reading was
reported to be needed time during daylight hours
for reading. The students also reported that
the electrical lights are usually turned on, even
if they are not necessary. This also depends on
the professor, and what kind of class it is, not
just the Kalwall performance. Most of the
students reported that they felt the overall
lighting conditions were adequate in the
building. Some of the problems that were
reported about the Kalwall were that it sometimes
provides unwanted light, and sometimes casts
unwanted shadows. None of the people surveyed
reported any problems with glare.
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Conclusions My overall conclusion of the art
building is that the building does not
effectively use daylighting to provide light to
the interior space or to reduce energy
consumption within the building. The main
problem with the lighting systems is that the
electrical lighting does not respond at all to
the natural light. There is no way to control
the amount of electrical light to use in the
room lights must be either half on, all on, or
all off. The translucent panels provide enough
light to the studios that only a small amount of
additional electric lighting is needed, but there
is no way to turn the lights on only a small
amount. So since the lights need to be on almost
all the time anyway, the daylighting becomes
unnecessary.
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Conclusions In order for the daylighting to
function well in the building, the electrical
lighting needs to have more control. It is
impossible to completely eliminate the need for
electrical lighting during the day in an art
building, but the electrical use could be greatly
reduced. Dimmer switches, better light
placement, and more specific lighting could
greatly reduce the amount of electrical lighting
used in the building.