School Balancing Energy Efficiency with Daylighting Turns to Kalwall
Roosevelt K-2 Primary School
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The Roosevelt K-2 Primary School in Elkhart, Indiana, gets high marks as one of the first new buildings in the state to exceed upcoming changes to energy and building code requirements. "Initially, we expected that the stricter energy requirements would force us to sacrifice the positive health effects of natural daylighting in favor of energy efficiency," explains project architect Rick Boyd of Fanning Howey Associates. The firm had used standard Kalwall® before on numerous occasions, but for Roosevelt, "we selected translucent skylights with the new R-20 Kalwall+ Nanogel® aerogel because it's the only insulated daylighting product able to meet both the design and energy criteria. The school is compact, with most auxiliary spaces located in its center, and we wanted natural light in those areas, especially the Media Center." Kalwall has long been a technology of choice in schools and universities. Applications range from entry-area skylights to classroom window systems – where translucent Kalwall is ideal for glare-free, balanced daylighting – to gymnasiums, pool areas, and libraries, as well as canopies and walkways.
During the manufacturing process, standard 2-3/4" (70 mm) Kalwall sandwich panels can be infilled with various densities of specialized, translucent insulation. Using Kalwall+ Nanogel, the lightest, most highly insulating, diffuse-light-transmitting system available, architects and designers can achieve a thermal insulation value of U = .05 Btu/hr/ft²/°F, or 0.3 W/m²K – equivalent to a solid wall and four times greater than insulating glass units – and still cover large areas of translucent cladding or roofing. Made with hydrophobic aerogel, Nanogel is UV-stable, resists moisture, and is noncombustible. Building projects such as Roosevelt benefit year 'round from minimized solar gain and heat loss, cutting energy costs for air conditioning and heating; the controlled daylight also reduces the need for artificial lighting. Overall, thermal performance equals a North American R-value of R-8 per inch and a European U-value of 0.7 per 25 mm thickness. Using Kalwall can also contribute up to 21 LEED® points in five categories.
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For the Roosevelt K-2 Primary School project, Kalwall strategic partner Structures Unlimited, Inc., was utilized for the largest skylights. Structures Unlimited systems are self-supporting, aluminum structures, with clear spans over 150 feet, blended with Kalwall translucent sandwich panels to form a total composite system. Pre-engineered, prefabricated and factory pre-finished, Structures Unlimited is a trouble-free, single-source solution to daylighting large spaces. The balanced daylighting achieved by these ultra energy-efficient structures opens up a world of design and engineering possibilities to architects and building designers. Over Roosevelt's Media Center, Structures Unlimited created a dramatic pyramid skylight – the largest in the world incorporating Kalwall+ Nanogel – measuring 64 feet. A 36-foot by 32-foot canopy, using one-third Kalwall+ Nanogel on the inside and two-thirds standard insulation on the outside, covers the school's main entrance, and 16-foot by 8-foot, standard Kalwall gables shield the remaining three entrances. Museum-quality Daylighting™ showers the student dining area from a single, Kalwall+ Nanogel center ridge skylight (18 feet by 40 feet), and five smaller pyramid skylights – supplied by Kalwall and totaling 1,310 square feet – daylight the corridors.
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The Kalwall+ Nanogel daylighting system also improves acoustic performance and minimizes unwanted noise with greatly reduced sound transmission while still providing spectrally correct, diffuse light. The 64-foot pyramid skylight could have acted as a sound tunnel; fortunately, sound-absorbing Nanogel insulation reduces and reflects unwanted noise levels that could be quite deafening in a group of excited school children.
According to John Kabana of Shaffner Heaney Associates, a distributor of Kalwall products, "The building owners insisted that the new school meet the proposed new energy codes, even though the new regulations have yet to be adopted. The Kalwall daylighting systems allowed them to create open, spacious environments that balance light and heat, a difficult task considering the new building envelope's R-value requirements." Adds Tony Gianesi, Facility General Manager, Elkhart Community Schools, "The energy benefits are very visible. It opens up the building with natural light. Even on a cloudy day you can be in the space without turning on any lights. This is real energy savings we experience every day." School employees are also very happy with the translucent skylights. Even in the dead of an Indiana winter, the quality of daylighting is excellent and students have better attitudes; the second-story, windowless Science Center gets enough natural light from the 64-foot pyramid skylight to allow seeding and planting. About Kalwall+ Nanogel, Rick Boyd simply says, "I don't know of any other product that could provide the properties that we were looking for."
Roosevelt K-2 Primary School
Elkhart, IN
Architect: Fanning Howey Associates
Specifications
Kalwall+ Nanogel Skylights:
Light Transmission: 15%
Solar Heat Gain Coefficient: 0.12
U-Value: .05 Btu/hr/ft²/°F, or 0.3 W/m²K
Standard Kalwall Skylights:
Light Transmission: 15%
Solar Heat Gain Coefficient: 0.15
U-Value: .29 Btu/hr/ft²/°F, or 1.6 W/m²K
For more information, contact:
Structures Unlimited, Inc., 603-645-6539 (800-225-3895 N. America)
Kalwall is a registered trademark of Kalwall Corporation U.S.A.
Nanogel is a registered trademark of Cabot Corporation.
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