Center for Translational Research and Education CTRE, Maywood, IL, USA

Center for Translational Research and Education CTRE

The Center for Translational Research and Education is a major new research facility on Loyola’s Health Science Campus including wet and dry laboratories, offices, interaction spaces, an auditorium, and a vivarium. By consolidating multiple programs in one building the center will foster collaboration among the principal investigators and staff while creating a signature, flexible flagship for the campus future.

Transsolar developed the energy-efficient occupant-centric comfort concepts, ensured successful architectural integration of the overall concept, and performed daylight and advanced thermal simulations to tune comfort performance of the proposed architectural and low-energy mechanical climate control systems. Laboratory spaces with stringent climate control requirements are surrounded by spaces with relaxed climatic requirements - such as office and collaboration spaces - which are more capable of interacting with the exterior environment. This way all building occupants are able to control their relationship with the exterior - and thus their personal comfort - to the greatest extent possible. Floor plans and façade are tuned to allow daylight into nearly all regularly occupied spaces while solar heat gain is controlled. Detailed engineering studies helped develop an architecturally integrated natural cross-ventilation strategy for the offices, collaboration atrium, and auditorium by connecting the air flow path from façade openings to the atrium exhaust. Multiple strategies help minimize energy use of the laboratories: air cascade from separated write-up spaces, demand-responsive ventilation rates, runaround heat recovery, and local chilled beams for cooling. Transsolar also developed the conceptual design of the energy supply and recovery system, and coordinated detailed load and energy calculations with the MEP engineers to ensure that the energy performance expectations were consistent between all team members.

The building’s site energy consumption is predicted at 247 kBtu/ft²/year – a 33% reduction compared to an ASHRAE 90.1-2010 energy code-compliant design.