Aug 13 2015
A senior apartment community in suburban Cleveland, Ohio is using SageGlass® dynamic glass, a product of Saint-Gobain, in its new Wellness Center to create a more comfortable, healthful and energy efficient indoor space for residents and staff.
Independence Place is a residential campus for seniors that is owned and operated by national real estate company, Forest City Enterprises, Inc. The company recently built the new Wellness Center to offer active seniors a unique combination of market rate apartment living with convenient access to healthcare services. The new Independence Place Wellness Center is an amenity building connecting two large apartment towers.
“The Wellness Center was designed with exam rooms and healthcare spaces to provide residents with in-home nursing, therapy and other services to improve their quality of life and allow them to remain safely at home on the campus. It also has a large grand room for community events and activities,” said Gina Anselmo, energy program engineer at Forest City.
With studies showing that optimizing natural daylight and outdoor views in healthcare facilities contributes to improved outcomes for patients, Forest City’s Building Technology Services (BTS) group saw the Wellness Center as a prime opportunity to test new building technologies. SageGlass windows were installed throughout the entire 9,300-square-foot Wellness Center including offices, corridors and the Grand Room. SageGlass is electronically tintable dynamic glass that maximizes daylight and outdoor views in buildings while controlling glare and heat gain.
“Electrochromic glass was one of the technologies identified by the BTS group to pilot. This technology was especially applicable in the Wellness Center because of its large curtain wall of windows in the 2,400-square-foot Grand Room, which holds community events and activities for the residents. SageGlass is helping to optimize daylight and control the sun’s glare without cutting off the connection to the outdoors. It’s also aiding in the cooling of the building,” Anselmo said.
In fact, SageGlass’ ability to reduce cooling loads was instrumental in helping Forest City pursue LEED® Silver certification for the facility. SageGlass aided in the “optimize energy efficient” credit by allowing the windows’ Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) to increase from 0.41 to 0.09 at full tint, as well as an improved R-value over the ASHRAE 90.1 baseline standard for windows. “SageGlass combined with other energy efficient technologies – including DC-powered LED lighting and VRF heating and cooling – has enabled the Wellness Center to achieve 30 percent more energy efficiency compared to the ASHRAE 90.1 baseline,” Anselmo said.
Source: http://www.saint-gobain-northamerica.com/