Student newspaper of Illinois Institute of Technology since 1928

IPRO 338: Retrofitting Crown Hall

By Hollie Lohman
TECHNEWS WRITER

The Interprofessional Project course
(IPRO) at HT is a teamebased learning envi
ronment in which students from various con,
centrations and disciplines work together to
solve realeworld problems IPRO 338, spone
sored by the Electrical Contractors Associa
tion of City of Chicago and Operation Green
Jobs, is tasked with participating in the NECA
Green Energy Challenge For the NECA
Green Energy Challenge, the IPRO team was
challenged to identify a facility on campus that
is in need of energy efficiency improvements
IPRO 338 chose to consider Crown Hall for

analysis, as it is considered the most historie
cally significant building on campus, as well as
the most energy inefficient T

he team then conducted an energy
audit of the building’s power and lighting sys
tems and a preliminary design of an energy
retrofit for power and lighting systems Addi
tionally, they designed a new solar PV energy
generation system for the facility

Crown Hall was built between 1950
and 1956, during Mies van der Rohe’s tenure
as director of Illinois Institute of Technology’s
department of architecture The modernistyle
steel and glass building is regarded as one of
the most architecturally significant buildings
of the 20th century modernist movementl
Due to the limited technology available in the

1950s, Crown Hall does not meet the current
minimum standards set by the American So,
ciety of Heating, Refrigerating, and AireCone
ditioning Engineers

IPRO 338 sought to perform an
analysis on possible smart technologies that
could be implemented in the building The
next step was to eliminate those technologies
that would be considered aesthetically unace
ceptable due to the historical significance of
Crown Halli

Upon elimination of those technolo
gies, the team performed an economic analysis
to determine the energy savings and payback
timeframe for each possible implementation
or combination of implementations The fol,
lowing categories were considered for Crown

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Hall renovation analysis: lighting, building
envelope renovation, geothermal technology,
and photovoltaic technology

Based on research conducted by
the team, lighting retrofits and geothermal
technology were the two most viable options
to consider The lighting retrofit would pay
for itself after 14 months and the geothermal
installation would pay for itself after 15 years
After the pay back dates, these two technolo
gies combined could generate over $100,000
per year in energy savings

For more information, or to request
the full report, visit http://wwwfacebookcom/
pages/Chicago,HawkseRetrofittingeCrown,
Hall/3482772185239611

 

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