Angarano and Evans Talk Repurposing Mid-Century Campus Buildings at SCUP Conference

Susanne Angarano, Principal/Senior Interior Designer, and Jason Evans, Associate Principal, presented “Repurposing Mid-Century Campus Buildings for a New Generation” at the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) North Atlantic Conference in Rochester, New York on Tuesday, March 12.

Many college campus buildings were built in time of cheap, fossil fuel-based energy, making them now costly to operate and maintain and giving them a high carbon footprint. In this session, Susanne and Jason explored how Binghamton University implemented a façade upgrade and high performance energy systems for deep energy retrofits for its Science IV building. Attendees learned how they can use smart technologies and modest materials applied in creative ways to update similar building stock at their institution.

At Binghamton University, our challenge was to transform an energy-intensive, visually mundane, 77,000-square-foot 1973 classroom building into an efficient, integrated, and welcoming element of the college campus. While respecting the overall form and composition of the existing structure, we explored options for a facade treatment that would provide a new, welcoming aesthetic direction for the building complex. Having considered terra cotta and brick, we settled on a new metal rainscreen system that allowed us to economically introduce fresh materials, colors, and textures to the exterior. Now, the Science IV building is an animated composition that’s in sync with the surrounding structures.

The building also had a dismal energy record, particularly in efficiency and thermal comfort. To remedy this, we undertook a deep energy retrofit: original windows were replaced with dual-pane, thermally-broken units, a blanket of insulation wrapping the exterior proved the optimal solution for improving the thermal performance and air-tightness of a historically-leaky exposed concrete façade, and the metal rainscreen system protects and refreshes the exterior.

About SCUP
The Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) is a community of higher education leaders responsible for the integration of planning on their campuses and for the professionals who support them. SCUP provides viewpoints from leaders from around the world but primarily within North America.