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This article was published in ASHRAE Journal, January 2015. Copyright 2015 ASHRAE. Posted at www.ashrae.org. This article may not be copied and/or
distributed electronically or in paper form without permission of ASHRAE. For more information about ASHRAE Journal, visit www.ashrae.org.
The larger the building, the greater the amount of energy needed to provide comfort
for the occupants and meet power demands of modern business. Buildings are typically replaced at a rate of 1% per year. However, large buildings tend to be kept in use
longer, and even longer if they become national monuments. Older buildings also use
more energy. For example, pre-1980 office buildings in the United States use 10% to
15% more energy on average1 than post-1980.
Once buildings are deemed to be landmark buildings, significant constraints are applied that restrict the
options for saving energy, particularly if the measures
affect the appearance. Given that the current horizons
for reducing energy use extend to 2050 and that the
majority of the todays buildings (and in some cases the
mechanical systems), estimated at 60% to 75%, will still
be in use at that time it is important, if not more important, to focus attention on reducing energy use in existing buildings in order to cut CO emissions and achieve
sustainability, rather than new.
This article is about energy-reducing measures
attempted and carried out in three large office buildings
in Chicago. The buildings are all skyscrapers and, by
coincidence Chicago is the city generally acknowledged
to be where the first skyscraper, The Home Insurance
Building, was built in 1885. Architects of the so-called
First Chicago School pioneered the steel-frame construction necessary to build skyscrapers; largely used
initially to construct large office buildings. Air conditioning meant it was no longer necessary to restrict the
depth of the floors from windows in buildings to provide
natural ventilation. It allowed architects to design much
deeper floor plates and ignore the thermal properties of
buildings; the use of curtain walling became endemic in
new buildings of the era. Experience has shown, however, that overcoming the inherently poor standards of
airtightness and thermal properties of buildings built
post World War II, particularly with curtain walling
makes achieving high standards of sustainability a very
difficult task.
The three buildings in this article are of this vintage,
and were first visited by the author in 20012003 as
part of personal research on the length of service life
David Arnold, Ph.D., is a partner at Troup Bywaters & Anders in Reading, U.K. He is chair of ASHRAEs Historical Committee.
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TECHNICAL FEATURE
FIGURE 1
Inland Steel building floor plan.
of equipment in air-conditioned
buildings. Chicago was selected due
to the abundance of large air-conditioned buildings built in the 1950s
and 60s, many with their original
systems. The Inland Steel Building
and the Richard J. Daley Center
have been designated landmarks
by the Commission on Chicago
Landmarks and as such are subject
to constraints on alterations. The
buildings were re-visited in 2012
and found that during the intervening period many energy saving
measures had been attempted or
applied to the buildings, in distinctly
different ways, with different levels
of intervention.
The air-conditioning systems for
all three buildings were designed
between the mid-50s and the mid60s. The designs were typical of the
era, well before the First Oil Crisis
in the United States, and show
little acknowledgement to the need
to conserve energy. The systems
have common energy-demanding
techniques such as: a) operating
air and water distribution systems
at a constant rate, b) cooling air to
below its dew-point temperature to
dehumidify, and c) high inlet pressures terminal units. The buildings
continue to operate today with the
original air-conditioning systems
modified and retrofitted to reduce
FIGURE 2 (LEFT)
Section at perimeter.2 FIGURE 3 (RIGHT) Low level air supply grilles.
The Buildings
Inland Steel Building
The Inland Steel Building was
designed by architects Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill (SOM) in 1956
and completed in 1958. The building has 19 stories above ground and
a particularly unusual plan form,
which separates office areas from a
services tower. The services tower
53
TECHNICAL FEATURE
54
TECHNICAL FEATURE
FIGURE 5 (LEFT) Daley Center boiler plant. FIGURE 6 (RIGHT) Daley Center induction unit.
TECHNICAL FEATURE
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TECHNICAL FEATURE
TECHNICAL FEATURE
References
1. Buildings Energy Data Book. 2012. http://tinyurl.com/kz7a9hl.
2. Danz, E.1963, Architecture of Skidmore Owens Merrill the
Architectural Press, pp 74 81.
3. Bright, W. 2013. The Groundbreaking Inland Steel Building
Becomes Fully Appreciated 50 Years Later. Chicago Architecture
Blog, http://tinyurl.com/pl2ohtg.
4. HPAC. 1957. Whats happening in Chicago. Heating Piping and
Air Conditioning Magazine (02):157161.
5. Lange, A. 2010, In Metropolis: Blue Sky Thinking. http://tinyurl.
com/m7qwwuh.
6. EPA. 2013. Richard J. Daley Center Energy Star Labeled Profile.
http://tinyurl.com/lsyttfb.
7. USGBC. 2012. Richard J. Daley Center. http://tinyurl.com/mcspo3k.
8. Ibata, D. 1985, Hancock Aims At $12 Million Energy Savings.
Chicago Tribune. http://tinyurl.com/qz5q95d.
9. US-EIA. 2012. U.S. Energy Information Administration. Table
8.10 Average Retail Prices of Electricity, 1960-2011 (Cents per
Kilowatt-hour, Including Taxes). http://tinyurl.com/q7la8eg.
10. Smith, A., Gill, G., 2011, Toward Zero Carbon The Chicago
Central Area DeCarbonization Plan. Images Publishing Group.
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