Boston-primarily based Leers Weinzapfel Associates has finished a new water-cooling facility at Ohio State University that is sheathed in a copper-coloured aluminium display (+slideshow).
Encompassing 30,000 square feet (2,800 square metre), the East Regional Chilled Water Plant sits on a prominent website among the historic Ohio State University (OSU) campus and the city of Columbus, Ohio. The building not only gives critical services, but also serves as an aesthetically pleasing gateway to the campus, explained the company.
“We feel that efficiency and beauty can co-exist in campus infrastructure,” stated firm principal Jane Weinzapfel in a statement.
“A building that serves utilitarian functions can not only meet rigorous practical specifications but can also, by way of artistic nevertheless synergistic layout, contribute to the architectural context of its surroundings,” she additional. “OSU’s East Regional Chilled Water Prepare is our firm’s most recent example of this strategy.”
The OSU plant homes a centralized method that supplies chilled water to many campus buildings for use in their air-conditioning techniques. Right after the water is used, it is sent back to the plant to be re-cooled and redistributed.
The creating comprises two overlapping volumes. The boxy upper volume, which is open to the sky and contains the cooling towers, is sheathed in a display made of copper-hued aluminium.
The veil features two perforation densities, along with narrow open slots, that collectively meet ventilation demands for the cooling equipment.
“Its perforated, copper-coloured aluminium enclosure serves as a new interpretation of the brick employed prolifically on this and several US college campuses, incorporating aesthetic selection to its developed surroundings,” explained the firm.
“The result is an classy approach that fits well with the building’s urban website and the surrounding context of older brick buildings.”
Relevant story: Erick van Egeraat’s Roskilde energy plant has a glowing perforated facade
The reduce, two-story volume is rectilinear in kind and covered in glass. “Veiled and diaphanous on the exterior, it supplies semi-transparent views from the interior hunting out,” mentioned the firm.
Finished in June, the facility homes a densely packed layout of tools, with up to 6 chillers and cooling towers. To minimise the building’s mass, the firm positioned pumping tools in a basement.
The plant glows at night, which helps illuminate surrounding pedestrian zones and “continues the dialogue amongst the building’s varieties and their contrasting supplies,” mentioned the firm.
“The glowing crystalline reduce volume is lit from the inside, even though the glittering metallic volume over is illuminated with a halo of projecting lights at its upper edge,” it added.
GBBN was related architect for the \$38 million (£24 million) project. The OSU facility marks the third university chiller plant by Leers Weinzapfel, with the other people at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Leers Weinzapfel, a multidisciplinary practice, was founded in 1982 by Andrea Leers and Jane Weinzapfel. In 2007, it was the first girls-owned studio to receive the prestigious Company Award from the American Institute of Architects — the highest honour bestowed upon a US architectural practice.
Recent infrastructure tasks by other companies contain the Amager Bakke Waste-to-Vitality Plant in Copenhagen by Bjarke Ingels Group, a waste incinerator and power plant in the Danish city of Roskilde by Erick van Egeraat, and a water remedy facility in Portland, Oregon, by Skylab Architecture.
Photography is by Brad Feinknopf
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