Mart Library and Computer Center, Lehigh University, Bethlehem PA
Architect: Warner Burns Toan Lunde
Lehigh
University's addition to the Mart Library is an 80,000 square foot wing that
includes reading areas, library stacks, and a computer center. The connecting
atrium is a major focus for the campus. The original Mart Library consumes over
250,000 BTU/sf/yr. The heavily occupied addition was designed to consume only
about one-sixth of that amount.
Stretched along an east-west axis, the library wing is only 55 feet wide allowing for abundant daylighting. The south façade is articulated in horizontal bands of well-insulated wall, windows for vision and light, projecting overhangs to control solar gain and to direct daylight deeper into the stacks.
Additionally, the louvers reduce nighttime heat loss and quicken building start-up in the morning. The north wall is well insulated, and combines a minimum of vision-level glass with continuous high clerestories which supplement and balance daylight from the south wall.
While the windows bathe the interior with light and open it to the views beyond, their area has been minimized to control heat loss, glare and solar gain. Reflective insulated glass panels are used generously in the façade design, particularly on the atrium, which looks east and west. The light-filled, airy atrium also has south-facing skylights, which are louvered to control heat gains and losses as well as light quality.
The Mart Library addition employs a unique and glassy architectural vocabulary in response to the client's desire aesthetics, yet achieves outstanding energy performance.
William Bobenhausen, FAIA served as principal for Energy Design Collaborative on this project.
The Mart Library and Computer Center project at Lehigh, and the Belfer Center at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government were presented by William Bobenhausen, FAIA at the First International Daylighting Conference in Phoenix, Arizona in 1983. Mr. Bobenhausen also presented a paper that quantified the reductions in peak electrical demand attributable to daylight - one of the first definitive examinations of a subject that has now become a commonplace strategy incorporated into sustainable architecture.