Rapson Hall Renovation & Addition

(hypothetical)

Project Description         

 

The mnZED (Minnesota Zero Energy Design) Lab is a student project completed for the 7-week studio/lecture course ARCH 5516:  Thermal and Luminous Design. The students designed a research lab as a third-floor addition to the existing Rapson Hall building. Students focused on thermal and daylighting strategies which respond to bioclimatic conditions to inform meaningful architectural design. In-depth energy and daylighting analysis was modeled to compare baseline building performance to optimized performance.

 

FALL 2011 SEMINAR:

ARCH 5550/4150: Whole Building Systems

The parametric analysis and testing of design and system strategies to improve the energy performance of Rapson Hall was a student research project for this 15-week seminar course. See resource column at right for full reports of the student projects.

 

SPRING 2011 DESIGN STUDIO/SEMINAR: 

ARCH 5516: Thermal and Luminous Design

See resource column at right for full report of the student projects.

In this 7-week studio/lecture course, students are asked to consider how daylighting, thermal, and bioclimatic considerations to meaningfully inform architectural design while also reducing fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions.  The students were challenged to design a third floor addition to “old Rapson Hall” for a proposed “Minnesota Zero-Energy Design Lab” (mnZED Lab) for the College of Design.  Design concepts, strategies, and principles as well as qualitative and quantitative assessment, and testing were considered to reduce energy and carbon emissions.