The Fitzpatrick Center: A Living Building?

This web page is the product of a student/faculty initiative whose aim is to transform the new Fitzpatrick Center into a "Living Building." The project began in February of 2005, when a group of 9 engineering students approached Kristina Johnson, the Dean of the Engineering School, to see if she would purchase wind power for the newly completed Engineering building. The student group that approached the Dean stressed the importance of the purchase for its environmental and educational benefits, as well as the boost it would give the renewable energy industry. An agreement was made to meet with the Dean again and next time to bring more fully developed ideas of how the renewable energy purchase could be used as a tool for generating awareness about wind energy, the Fitzpatrick Center, and its environmental features.

The pages that follow describe the monitoring systems currently in place in the Fitzpatrick Center, along with our vision of how those could be integrated and displayed in a user-friendly way to the students and faculty via the web, lobby kiosks and plasma screens, and even downloadable applications and data sets.

What brings a building to life?

By the simplest definition, a "living building" is one that exposes its inner workings (mechanical and electrical systems) and makes them accessible to the public. These days, many commercial buildings are outfitted with high tech sensors and monitoring systems that help building managers control the building's HVAC and utilities systems without having to manually walk around the building flipping switches and reading dials. These same sensors can be monitored and displayed in such a way that the building's performance is available in real time on touch-screen kiosks and web pages, even downloadable as data sets.

At Duke, nearly all the building sensors and monitoring systems on campus feed to a central control room located in the Facilities Management building off of Buchannan Boulevard. From there, mechanical systems can be monitored and adjusted so that the building operates efficiently. The Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine, and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS) building has a state-of-the-art SIEMENS monitoring/control system. Here is a brief list of the components currently being monitored by the SIEMENS system (hold your mouse over an item to see a representative picture):

 

We also have plans to monitor the outdoor temperature and humidity, recyling participation, the coal pile for Duke's physical plant, and the wind farm in the Midwest (via webcam).

Wind Power

In February of 2005, with the encouragement of a group of engineering students, the Pratt School of Engineering purchased 10,137,083 kW-hours of Renewable Energy Certificates (click here to learn more about the renewable energy certificates program) representing 100% of CIEMAS's Regulated Load over 2 years. Choosing the cleanest energy available, Pratt officials opted to purchase their certificates in the form of Midwest wind power. The purchase put the finishing touches on the building's environmentally sustainable aspects, and helped it to earn a Silver LEED Certification rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. The purchase has also earned Duke the Gold Star Award from the Southeast Green Power Network (Duke will be recognized at the 2005 Southeast Green Energy Summit May 3rd).

Internship

During the Summer of 2005, a student intern will be needed to begin implementing the Lucid Designs software for CIEMAS and generate a strategic plan for the "CIEMAS: Alive" project. The intern will work closely with Dr. David Schaad, the Assistant Chair of the Civil Engineering Department as well as Sam Hummel, the Environmental Sustainability Coordinator for Duke. One of the responsibilities of the intern will be to update this web page to reflect the project's progress and future plans.

The internship will involve a fair amount of web design, but will also include hardware setup and software implementation. If you are interested in this unique opportunity, send a resume and coverletter to: david.schaad@duke.edu

To read more about the job description and qualifications, click here.