PORTFOLIO
University of South Carolina Honors Residence Hall
Columbia, SC
The new six-story, 356-room "living and learning center" provides 191,000 square feet of dormitory and study space for students in the University's Honors College and Magellan Explorers learning communities.
The four-wing, suite-style Residence Hall consists of three wings of living pods, and a main building with public access. Each living pod houses a common living space for up to 12 students who live in single or double occupancy bedrooms. Semi-private restrooms are shared by two to four students. First-floor main building amenities include a full-service cafeteria, a vending area, an equipped kitchen, a laundry room, an indoor bicycle room with a shower. and a game room. The Honors Learning Center features three lecture-style classrooms and a conference room.
The Honors Residence Hall is USC's first Gold LEED-certified building. Significant green features begin with energy and water savings, and the reuse of the bluestone and veil block from the "Towers" residence halls that were razed to build the new facility. The hall is equipped with high-efficiency plumbing, washers, and dryers, and interior finishes feature materials ranging from recycled, containing no or low volatile organic compounds, and purchased within a 500-mile radius. Natural light is used as much as possible throughout the Hall, and "light shelves" shield all south-facing windows from unwanted solar heat.
Kirlin's mechanical scope involved six vertical draw-through air handling units with a combined total of 46,780 cfm, and one fan coil unit per dorm room. Three heat recovery units provide 32,000 cfm of heat transfer/recovery. The chilled water system is tied into the University's on-campus chiller plant system, and all of the steam-fired equipment on this project is tied into the university's steam and pumped condensate systems. Hot water for the building is produced by three steam-fed water heaters, and for the kitchen equipment by two gas-fired water heaters with a combined total of 399,998 BTUH input.
