Solutions Grow From Place:

Revealing the Pavilion Building at Colorado State University

Within a holistic, performance conscious design, the building is presented to the user as more than just windows and walls. It is a teaching tool.  A way to engage the user in meaningful dialog between the mind, body and spirit and to celebrate the value of a university setting as more than just a place to open a book and passively listen to a lecture. It is a place for active social engagement and, ultimately, for learning how to learn, which, arguably, is the real value of an education. Designed by 4240 Architecture, the Pavilion at Laurel Village embraces this concept in design and operation with the goal to awaken the senses and stimulate action, while letting nature do the heavy lifting.

Building design solutions such as passive solar interfacing, smart footprints, and engaging convective airflows adds significant value without adding the universally unwanted burden of additional cost. Specifically, there is a first cost savings and operational savings. Through the filter of performance based design, 4240 engages the architecture in terms of space and operation in such a way that one element can contribute to multiple project benefits.  In other words, we do more with less which is a fundamental principle of sustainable design.

In its functional essence, the Pavilion is a shared building within a larger residential learning community called Laurel Village on the campus of Colorado State University.  It serves as a multi-functional resource building for both students and faculty.  The programmatically diverse and multi-scaled environment presents users different ways to engage and learn, both individually and socially, through such features as a living sloped roof, an outdoor performance green, and a modern day Agora.  As part of a comprehensive dialog with site, 4240 consciously influences grade to create a vertical dimension out of a flat site.  Indoor/outdoor relationships are emphasized to promote collaboration, creativity, and a connection to place.  Surrounding elements plug into the building as a center of energy.  Ultimately, the goal of this process is to provide a range of places for the students to engage and be engaged.

The design process for Pavilion began as an intimate dialog with context.  By understanding the natural (sun and wind) and human flows (movement and occupation), 4240 began to understand the opportunities inherent within the site.  We engaged the client to help develop the design and operational story, thus eliciting the specific project goals.  Design strategies were ultimately tested for viability through extensive research, testing and analytical analysis.  Analytical tools, such as energy modeling, shadow studies, and use patterning helped to validate the client needs with the capacity of the site.

To fully serve the many needs of the community, the building is home to a student gallery, mailroom, office space, classroom space, bike repair shop, and numerous scales of lounge/study space. What makes this building truly unique are the design and operational decisions based around high performance design.  Using passive heating and cooling strategies, such as a Katabatic cooling tower, trombe parapet wall, natural ventilation, and east/west orientation, the Pavilion building is projected to use only a quarter of the energy of a baseline building of the same size/occupancy type.  It is also expected to receive the first LEED Platinum rating for a CSU building.  Further, the building uses different strategies to embrace the surrounding environment and community.  Large, high performing windows will connect inside and outside spaces, a sloped green roof will provide a habitable feature for student engagement, and the east building façade will become a projection surface for community presentation/movie events. 

Technical Overview

As previously mentioned, one of the key features of the project will be a Katabatic Cooling Tower. Serving not only as a visible “campanile” for the larger village project, the tower primarily acts as a passive cooling element during the cooling season; drawing in warm, dry air and cooling the air through a mist of water.  The cooled air falls to the bottom of the tower and is drawn out vertical registers or through a concrete trench duct below the slab by natural convective forces. These convective forces are enhanced by a trombe parapet wall (acting as a solar thermal chimney) on the other side of the building. Taking advantage of buoyancy forces generated by the vertical density (temperature) differences, the solar thermal chimney is integrated into the design of the building’s north parapet to maintain simplicity in form and to help reduce first cost.  The south facing trombe parapet glazing heats up the air at the top of the wall thereby creating a stack effect for the building; drawing the warm air up and out while pulling the cooled tower air into the building.  During the heating season, the trombe parapet exhaust is sealed and captured heat is re-distributed back into the building through both ultra low-energy in-line and destratification fans.  One of the main challenges of this system is properly understanding and controlling air flow through the building in order to ensure maximum comfort for the occupants.  Assisting in proper design as well as ensuring year round comfort in all areas, computational fluid dynamic modeling fine tuned the louver size and placement.  On a typical winter day, the trombe parapet is anticipated to supply up to 35% of the heating load with ventilation during normal operation hours.  This, coupled with the assistance of a 48kw PV array, abundant daylight, and hyper-efficient LED lighting, will enable the building to save over 75% on annual energy costs compared to a typical community building.  The combination of both passive and active performance elements create for a dynamic learning environment with a small footprint.

Air quality is an important consideration in any building and the Pavilion is no exception.  Ample fresh air is introduced to the building with carefully designed cross ventilation strategies.  Operable doors open along the first floor agora lounge southern wall and work in conjunction with un-impeded openings along the northern wall to allow fresh air to wash through the building. Thoughtfully and artfully selected materials and finishes not only omit potential toxins, but help filter and clean the air, as in the case of the living green wall.  An interior, vertical green wall is wrapped by an open staircase designed to engage students’ senses while cleansing the air. The green wall increases oxygen levels while decreasing carbon dioxide, particulate, and VOC levels in the building.  The plants also release water vapor that helps cool the air as it rises up the stair in the summer and restores humidity to heated spaces in the winter through the process of evapotranspiration.

Another sustainable strategy 4240 implemented is the idea of materiality as a teaching tool. Structure and systems are purposively exposed throughout the building to provide a visual learning mechanism for the occupants; primarily students.  By helping students understand their environment, a deeper appreciation develops, leading to awareness and conscious decisions.  One of the key material/structural elements expressed in the Pavilion is the cross laminated timber (CLT) floor and roof.  Comprised of sustainably harvested beetle kill wood, the laminated timber is the main horizontal structural element of the building; providing a pleasant, warm aesthetic for interior spaces.  Further, thermal mass elements, such as exterior/interior stone and masonry walls, concrete floors at the lower level, and phase change mats help the building self-regulate the storage and transmission of the (inherent and created) latent thermal energy of the building.  This satisfies a minimum of 5% of the building needs.  As an additional benefit, these materials provide the user a tactile and visual experience unique to this academic setting, thus evoking memories, creating awareness and fostering appreciation.

Deriving innovation and inspiration from site characteristics, the Pavilion is an integrated, enduring model that ultimately shifts behaviors and future expectations towards a more comprehensive environmental stewardship.  4240 employs a regenerative based design methodology that responds to the natural and contextual flows of the site, ultimately contributing an inimitable, intrinsic value to a contextually based project.  Through the life of the Pavilion, as with all projects, we strive to provide efficient, performance based solutions that enhance the human spirit, share resources, embrace the natural environment and protect the project’s constraints; all the while minimizing (and ideally eliminating) waste.

Owner: Colorado State University

Design Team:

Architect: 4240 Architecture, Inc.

Structural Engineer: KL&A

MEP Engineer: Cator Ruma & Associates

Civil Engineer: JVA, Inc

Landscape: Russell Mills

Sustainability Consultant: Ambient Energy

Envelope Consultant: Techniscan

Acoustics / AV: Geiler Associates

For more information:

www.csupavilion.com