Mount Angel Abbey Center for Theological Studies

Daylighting

The team sought glare-free, evenly distributed daylight in all rooms during 95 percent of normal occupancy hours. Based on studies of classroom lighting levels in other countries, the U.S. and their prototype classroom, they aimed for a minimum-maximum range of 20-40 footcandles at four percent daylight factor.

According to Kent Duffy of SRG Partnership, “This addresses a variety of tasks and ambient lighting conditions. The daylight factor was higher in order to bring in the required light levels through more hours of the year, particularly during the winter months.” The daylighting goal displaces significantly more electric lighting than USGBC’s LEED and Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) standards.

To achieve this, each classroom has a large central skylight with louvers that automatically rotate to control daylight levels. The final design also features triangular extruded aluminum reflector tubes arranged in concentric layers of diminishing density from the center outward. As opposed to having a bright area under the skylight, this reduced the light at the center of the room while maintaining a high level at the edges. The result was more uniform light levels—an ideal combination for quiet and purposeful study. The skylight louvers, as well as the sunshades and light shelves on all south-facing office and classroom windows, reduce glare and moderate solar heat gain. All windows also have roll-down shades to control sunlight.

High-efficiency electric lights, equipped with dimming ballasts and occupancy sensors, provide additional illumination when needed. SRG specified T-5 High Output (HO) lighting adjacent to the classroom reflectors, ?T-8s for the marker boards and offices, and compact fluorescents in the corridors.

Integrated Passive Heating, Cooling And Ventilation

Working with ESBL and the mechanical engineer from the beginning, the design team worked to take advantage of the local climate conditions, particularly the diurnal temperature swing, focusing on passive techniques to heat, cool and ventilate all the building spaces. These techniques rely on climate, convection and human bodies as resources. The passive approaches are supplemented by a right-sized radiant heating system, plus heat recovery ventilators, ceiling fans, electric lighting and performance-boosting controls. The heat recovery ventilators in each classroom and the larger one serving the offices and corridors run at 70 percent and 80 percent effectiveness, thereby reducing one-fourth the building’s heating load. The offices are primarily passive solar heated. Using computational fluid dynamics optimization, the team designed air inlets and outlets to maximize cooling and minimize conductive heat loss.

During warm weather, the sunshades, light shelves, roll-down shades and louvers in the classroom skylights reduce heat gain. Convection draws cool outside air into the classrooms through manually operated louvers on either side of the classroom windows, and automatically-controlled dampers above each window. Each office has an operable window, air inlet and transom above the door to the hall.

The cooler outside night air flows through automatically controlled inlets and past the thermal mass in the floors and ceilings. Ceiling fans boost air movement when needed. Excess heat is exhausted passively through turbine ventilators in the roof.

The fans, combined with the area’s low seasonal humidity, allowed the designers to achieve acceptable comfort with indoor temperatures three to four degrees warmer than the 80-degree ASHRAE Standard 55 maximum, greatly extending the hours when mechanical cooling is not needed.

To make the night flush system work best, the team installed temperature sensors in the thermal mass, and suppressed the radiant heating system so it does not activate on cool summer mornings.

Controls

A digital control system operates pumps, valves and dampers, and monitors wind speed, CO2 sensors, temperature sensors and other controls. The team wrote user interface instructions about the system based on seasonal differences for both office and classroom spaces. The controls contractor trained building operations and maintenance staff to use the system. Additionally, the digital control system is connected to the Web, allowing the design team and owner to monitor building performance remotely.

Spread Of Concept

The high-performance classroom concept was refined during this project, particularly through evaluation of the full-size test prototype. SRG continues to evolve the model in other projects, including a high-performance music classroom for da Vinci Arts Middle School in Portland and a laboratory and classroom building for Spokane Community College. BOORA Architects is using a similar model for its addition to the Canby Middle School.

Benefits Of Daylighting

In addition to the now widely accepted view that daylighting is good for human performance, Mount Angel’s daylight provides another, less tangible, but significant benefit. As Father Michael Mee, who chaired Mount Angel Abbey’s Building Committee, notes, “The lighting goes beyond just the energy efficiency, to a theological aspect. The students who study here are studying theology—the study of God—and preparing themselves for the priesthood. They sit in these classrooms, so filled with wonderful light. They’re bathed in light, their minds are to be bathed in light, and they’re to be enlightened in these classrooms.”

High Efficiency At Lower First Cost

The original high-performance classroom study showed that high levels of efficiency could be achieved at lower first cost than traditional construction. The Mount Angel project proved that the team could obtain high performance within the project budget.

Integrated Design

Integrated design is especially important when using passive ventilation. The project team needs to determine how “smart” the air is going to be. Computational fluid dynamics optimization is a valuable tool. According to G. Z. Brown of Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory, “The heart of the integrated design process is the search for synergies among the attributes of climate, use patterns, design and systems that will result in increased performance, while reducing project first-cost and operating expense.”