Breathing Easy
The principles are things we all know: hot air rises and cool air descends, wind is a good ventilator. This isn't a new idea. 4000 year old buildings have been found that were clearly built to bring in outside air. Office buildings built before central air-conditioning had transoms over the doors in an effort to let the air move around.
Mechanically Assisted Natural Ventilation
- The south wall in the Auditorium is a double wall, with space in between for cool air to fall from the outside intakes down to these low vents.
- A fan in a vent above the balcony pulls warm air out of
the auditorium and encourages the cool air to flow in.
- The natural ventilation system will be utilized in warm weather on Saturday nights to "cool the slab" by automatic controls that will bring in cooler outside air from about 11:00 PM until dawn.
Radiant tubes in the floor chill the floor to just above the dew point. The floor duct system for heating is separate. - In order to pull fresh air through the entire atrium building, not just the auditorium, another fan and vent are in the Crossing, near where the new addition connects to the Landmark building.
Unlike in many modern buildings, windows in the atrium building open, giving access to fresh air and breezes localized to where they are needed.- Following Frank Lloyd Wright's plan, the window sashes which open are red; the ones which do not are black.
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Sensors in the auditorium will engage the natural ventilation system anytime the CO2 level rises too high.
- The outside air intakes have filters to keep the incoming air clean.
- The ventilation system allowed the engineers to cut the size of the HVAC equipment by 75%, because engineers' standard is to design a system that will maintain 72 degrees and 52% humidity for the whole building through temperature extremes that occur only every 100 years. The natural ventilation system allowed the owners to convince the engineers to work with a computer model where, on the hottest day of August, we have the building at 65-68 degrees when congregants walk in at 9:00 on Sunday morning, and then gradually let it heat to 78 degrees and 54% humidity by 12:30 when people are leaving.
