ACI Silver Award Winner: ACET Building, SUNY Morrisville
Ryan Biggs Clark Davis won a Design and Installation Award from the Central New York Chapter of the American Concrete Institute for the ACET Building at SUNY Morrisville.
The Agricultural and Clean Energy Technology Building at SUNY Morrisville won a Silver Award! This new 34,000-square-foot structure houses space for the college’s agricultural engineering, diesel technology, and renewable energy programs. To facilitate these programs the ACET not only provides a computer classroom, a conventional-style lecture hall, faculty offices, a conference room, and a lounge, but also houses program specific learning environments. These environments include three large garage bays, each equipped with overhead cranes, a wind and telecom climbing safety lab, equipped with segments of telecom towers, and a solar lab equipped with mock roofs for practice of both PV and thermal panel installation. The facility also houses lab space dedicated to wind and hydro power, thermal energy, and biofuels. The facility was built into a south facing hillside to reduce the area of exterior exposure. This allows the facility to utilize the stable temperature of the earth to reduce both the heating and cooling energy demands. This location also helps conceal the large garage bays, which are located at the back of the building on the low side of the hill. The ACET Center’s structural system incorporates many structural materials including metal deck, structural steel framing, cast-in-place concrete foundations, and retaining walls, and both masonry and precast concrete bearing walls. These masonry and precast concrete walls remain exposed in the facility, providing a durable finish material on the interior. While insulated precast panels make up the exterior walls of the high-bay garage space, the balance of the structure utilizes reinforced masonry bearing and shear walls clad with insulated metal panels for an elegant, efficient, and cost-effective finish. At the high-bay tower lab at the western end of the facility, 12” reinforced CMU walls span 34 feet from foundation to roof structure to accommodate the telecom training towers within the space. H-blocks were utilized to facilitate construction of these highly reinforced walls, helping to increase grout area within the wall and improve overall wall strength. Energy use within the facility was further reduced using north-facing windows and skylights. Their orientation limits glazing on the south side of the structure which reduces cooling demand during the hot summer months while still providing natural lighting. The completed facility runs true to SUNY Morrisville’s vision of a sustainable future and provides state of the art educational space to truly inspire learning through experience.
Spenser Maunu and Janis Baker attended the awards ceremony.
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