Sundt recently completed the $36 million Mediated Learning Center for DeAnza College in Cupertino, Calif. The 66,900-square-foot higher education project includes classrooms equipped for online collaborative instruction in real time, a dedicated television recording studio and more. It’s also one of a handful of buildings in the country outfitted with a highly energy-efficient buoyancy-driven air circulation system, which is designed to ventilate more than 80 percent of the building without fan power. This, along with several other sustainable features, is expected to earn the project LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
The air circulation system draws in outside air through intakes on the roof. As the air passes over cooling coils and the temperature decreases, it descends through shafts into the under-floor air chambers that serve the first and second floors. Heating coils warm the air as needed to meet temperature settings and then deliver it through floor-based vents as part of the building’s energy-efficient, under-floor air distribution system. As people and equipment warm the air throughout the day, the air and indoor air pollutants rise to ceiling exhaust shafts and the atrium before being released to the outdoors through clerestory louvers.
DeAnza College’s new Mediated Learning Center was complete and open for the beginning of the fall 2012 semester.