BUFFALO, N.Y.—April 6, 2011—Cannon Design has announced the opening of Starin Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater—a five-story building providing a living/learning environment that facilitates students’ transition to the professional world. This project is in association with Potter Lawson.
The highly-collaborative methodology, embraced by the university and the design team, was essential to this transformative project that formed the philosophical heart of Starin Hall. The unique and fully accessible 450-bed suite-style residence hall enhances the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus, renowned for both its national-champion wheelchair basketball team and its exemplary accommodation of students with disabilities. An exciting example of universal design in action, the facility is also slated to become Wisconsin’s first LEED Gold residence hall.
“The UWW and Cannon Design partnership grew from a common project vision that was identified in campus-wide workshops on universal and sustainable design,” said Lynne Deninger, AIA, LEED AP, principal, Cannon Design. “These sessions explored how design options could support and enrich the campus experience through inclusive design, embracing the university’s mission to engage the diverse community at UWW.”
Sustainable design Large expanses of glass and multiple window orientations admit daylight to all of Starin Hall's regularly occupied spaces. The building achieves a 28% reduction in energy use via an efficient four-pipe fan coil system serving each suite, an energy-recovery system that extracts heat from air before it is exhausted out of the building, and a high-performance building envelope. Structural concrete and steel, curtainwall, glass, storefront and selected finishes incorporate significant recycled content.
Each suite is served by a separate electrical panel. This design makes it feasible to measure each suite’s electricity consumption and to display it in real time to residents, on electric demand meters located in each suite. All of these meters are networked with a metering program hosted on the campus’s servers, and electricity consumption data is displayed on multiple web pages, both in raw form and in different graphical configurations. In the main lobby, a large flat-screen display shows the combined electricity consumption of all of the building’s suites. Using two attached keyboards, students can view electricity consumption in increasing detail, down to the individual suite level. (more)
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The university anticipates using this metering program to set up conservation competitions that reward the students whose suites consume the least electricity in a given period. Not only is the system likely to reduce electrical energy consumption of students while they live in the residence hall, but it may also instill conservational habits that students will retain after they leave.
Universal design Designated by the University of Wisconsin System as the preferred campus for students with disabilities, the Whitewater campus hosts a number of programs for students with disabilities of all types, who compose 30 percent of the student body.
"Starin is one of a kind. It is rare in the sense that anyone from any ability level can be granted equal access to it," Peter Lohr, president, UWW’s Disability Advocacy Awareness Coalition.
Those who are wheelchair-bound benefit from the 20 percent of the residence hall’s bedrooms that are wheelchair-accessible, twice the number required by code, as well as 36-inch-wide doors on all bedrooms that enable wheelchair-bound students to visit any living space in the building. Available for the first-time, wheelchair-bound students can not only live with a roommate but potentially another wheelchair-bound student. Kitchens in every suite are fully wheelchair accessible, and corridors are wider throughout the building to accommodate two-way wheelchair traffic. All building entrances and wheelchair-accessible suites are equipped with power-assisted doors. Tactile floor materials articulate all changes in floor level to aid visually impaired residents and visitors. These accommodations were designed to benefit students with disabilities now and in the future. Cannon Design is an Ideas Based Practice, ranked among the leading international firms in planning and design for healthcare, science and technology, education, sports and recreation, and government clients. At present, the firm employs a staff of over 1,000, delivering services in 16 offices throughout North America, as well as abroad in Shanghai, China, and Mumbai, India. Please visit www.cannondesign.com for additional information.
