St. Joseph'S College Athletic Facility

The site of the Athletic Facility is adjacent to the existing campus of the College which is, itself, situated within a New York City Historic District. While the new 30,000 sf building is not located within that historic district, it borders an adjacent historic district to the West. Its location was deemed important both as an EXTENSION of the existing campus and as an important infill structure within this urban context. Out of a sense of environmental stewardship, the College established a goal of LEED Silver as a baseline target for the building and achieved LEED Gold for New Construction. With the Athletic Director’s close collaboration, we were able to provide large areas of east facing glass starting 12’ above the gymnasium floor. The interior is shielded from glare by the exterior louvers (vertical, effective when the sun moves to the south off the horizon), interior shading blinds and high performance glass which eliminates heat buildup due to radiation off of interior surfaces. Glazing of the entry lobby creates a dynamic and daylight-filled interior which provides borrowed light to adjacent rooms and encourages use of the monumental stair that rises within this volume of space. The building is equipped with a sophisticated Building Management System which is controlled centrally by network connection by the Building Engineer. This system delivers air/heat/cooling via a central duct trunk and local fan coil units each controlled by local thermostats. That local control combined with a networked BMS system permits the building engineer to provide speedy response to local need should it require a local override. The system is also designed to permit pre-cooling of the large spaces to avoid sudden high demand and sequencing in the control cycle to avoid the running of equipment unnecessarily during non-peak times.