Foellinger Foundation

  • Slide 1: Lobby Entrance
  • Slide 2: Conference Room
  • Slide 3: Employee Lounge

In 2022, the Foellinger Foundation, located in Fort Wayne, Indiana, began the renovation of its 30-year-old building which included a refinished basement, six open meeting and collaboration spaces, and four private meeting spaces.

The overall design provided for new lighting systems of various types to not only light the work areas, but also to update the aesthetics, help define spaces, and accentuate the building’s architecture. To provide added daylight throughout the building, a portion of the second floor was removed to expose the glass ceiling. Hanging from this ceiling are circular pendant lights, visible from the public spaces as well as the basement, which in daylight, provide supplemental illumination, but become striking ornamental features on darker days and at night. For additional architectural interest, cost-effective LED ceiling grid lights were installed in creative patterns throughout the building. Since the removal of part of the second floor required significant structural changes, careful coordination of the remaining infrastructure and existing systems in upgrading the HVAC systems was critical. While much of the existing central heating and cooling plant equipment was retained, new modern controls were installed for better air distribution management, and as a result, enhanced comfort of individual spaces within the building.

Image credit goes to MKM architecture + design.

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Carroll High School

  • Slide 1: Gymnasium
  • Slide 2: Fitness Center
  • Slide 3: Boiler
  • Slide 4: Science Lab

Northwest Allen County Schools faced a decision to either build a second high school or expand and renovate the existing facility, located in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They chose to expand and renovate the existing while maintaining operations through the 3 year $52 million construction period.

The expansion included new academic classrooms for science, music, art, industrial technology, agriculture, a new data center for the district, new athletic training and gymnasium space, as well as new administrative offices. Primary Engineering worked very closely with the school district and design team to develop a renovation project that was properly sequenced to allow continuous use of the facility and all of it’s HVAC, power, and communication systems while the project was under way.

The mechanical plant improvements included the addition of 1400 tons of cooling, a new boiler plant, 27 new air handlers, energy recovery units, new building controls, and extensive upgrades to the existing boiler chiller plant distribution system.

The power systems included a new service entrance and close coordination with phasing to keep power on to all areas of the building during the upgrades. Our design team worked very closely with the IT department to install a complete upgrade to all communication systems that includes 10 GB fiber backbones throughout the building to allow for the convergence of their VOIP phones, IP clocks, IP door access control, 280 IP surveillance cameras, 300 wireless access points, and an IP PA system. The network cabling system includes approximately 1,000,000 feet of new category 6 cable in this building.

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Moontree Studios at Ancilla College

  • Slide 1: Shop Exterior
  • Slide 2: Gallery Beams
  • Slide 3: Lodge Exterior

This project consisted of a Lodge, a Gallery, and a Shop Building for the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ along with the Moontree Community at Ancilla College. Each of the separate buildings obtained a Gold Level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification.

The lighting system consisted of a lighting control system with occupancy sensors and daylight harvesting to take advantage of all the natural light from the many windows. A wind turbine was installed to harvest the wind from the open field behind the property. The turbine is connected to two of the buildings and has the ability to sell back energy to the local utility if the energy is not consumed.

To improve user comfort an in floor radiant heating system was installed along with passive cooling with the use of motorized windows. The sun's energy is harvested with a solar hot water system for domestic hot water. Rain water is collected for irrigation and excess water is used in the rain gardens on the property.

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South Bend Regional Airport

  • Slide 1: New Terminal
  • Slide 2: Secured Area Dining and Water Feature
  • Slide 3: New Jet Bridges

The South Bend Regional Airport expansion includes a new terminal that contains 5 new gates with jet bridges capable of handling 747 aircraft. The project will triple the passenger capacity for the facility and makes use of many energy conservation system in the design.

The HVAC systems consist of ground source geothermal heat pumps with energy recovery air handlers for all ventilation air into the new terminal. The ground loop was directionally bored under the gate area pavement and trenched into the grass areas adjacent to the taxiway lanes. The heat pumps also provide snow melt to pedestrian ramps in the winter to negate the need for salt and shoveling.

The lighting systems include daylight harvesting controls that will reduce the light fixtures based on the natural light that enters via the translucent roof systems and North facing windows. The lighting control system allows for flexibility and energy savings.

As part of this project, the airport also included in the design a complete upgrade to the Flight Information Display System (FIDS) that includes all of the monitors in the ticketing, concourse, and gate areas for passengers to view flight data and a hearing loop for hearing impaired travelers.

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Indiana Tech

  • Slide 1: Uytengsu Center
  • Slide 2: Exterior Lighting
  • Slide 3: Variable Frequency Drives
  • Slide 4: Building Controls Real Time Display
  • Slide 5: L.E.D. Lighting with Daylight Harvesting

Primary Engineering prepared the design for the renovation of the historic Seitz Center on the campus of Indiana Tech in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This building was constructed in 1856, before President Lincoln took office, and has stood ever since. The project converted this building into a 3 story administration building that emphasizes how to take an old building and make it energy efficient. The end result is a LEED-Gold Certified project that has operational costs of $0.750/sq. ft. annually.

The building exterior brick was retained with a new wall systems installed on the inside face of the building to provide a highly insulated wall and roof system. The HVAC systems for the building consists of geothermal heat pumps with energy recovery equipment to pre-condition the outside ventilation air.

Lighting systems are comprised primarily of LED fixtures that include lay-in troffer style fixtures as well as recessed cans such that the total power density of the lighting system will be approximately 50% of a traditional design that is used on the campus today.

All aspects of this project were sustainable with a focus on prudent design and engineering concepts that resulted in a quality building that is efficient to operate.

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