Overview
Support of public health issues and the advancement of improved public health lead to better quality of life for citizens of South Carolina. The University of South Carolina realized an expansion to the Public Health program was necessary to both promote public health initiatives and to also provide research, outreach and structured learning opportunities.
The Norman J. Arnold Public Health Research Center is a new 110,000 SF facility to accommodate the expansion of the Public Health program at USC. The facility houses laboratory and classroom spaces, offices, community outreach space and assembly areas. It is a five-story building that supports many different types of laboratories including human performance labs, human motor control labs and nutrition labs.
Engineering Highlights
- The building utilizes the USC campus steam and chilled water systems, which are optimized to operate more efficiently than stand-alone system, while allowing for a reduction in capital cost for the building itself.
- Other energy efficient features include motion activated faucets, waterless urinals, sun screens, high efficiency fluorescent fixtures equipped with energy saving electronic ballasts and judicious use of occupancy sensors.
- RMF utilized computer simulation to optimize the mechanical systems for the building to not only reduce energy usage, but to also show the interaction of different techniques with each other. The results showed that the building performed more than 20% better when compared to a building that did not use the optimized systems.
- Environmental chambers are utilized for performance research and allow for research to occur on actively performing athletes in varying humidity and temperature ranges.
