Consulting Engineering

Marian Spencer Residence Hall

University of CincinnatiCincinnati, Ohio

Marian Spencer Hall is a new high-rise / mixed use student housing facility totaling 112,600 square feet. The building contains offices for housing and food services. The building is located on the Uptown Campus–West on the site of the former dormitory, Sawyer Hall. The housing units are suite-style with four beds and bathroom for each unit. New offices totaling approximately 9,600 square feet serve Housing and Food Services. A grade-level food service operation serves the University community with a full-service operation and is designed as a café style operation.

The HVAC system serving the dining level and office area utilizes two, central, variable volume air handing units. Each zone utilizes a variable air volume terminal unit with hot water rehear to maintain zone temperature. The kitchen and server lines include several cooking stations which utilize stainless steel hoods to exhaust smoke and heat. The 50 percent makeup air for the hood exhaust consists of a makeup air system; the remaining make up air is conditioned air provided by the central air handling units.

The residence floors are heated and cooled utilizing four pipe fan coil systems. The outside air and exhaust system for these rooms include a dedicated, outside air unit which includes energy recovery to transfer energy from the exhaust air into the outside air stream.

The cooling source for the air handling units, fan coil units and dedicated outside air unit is derived from the central plant chilled water system. Steam from the central plant is routed through heat exchangers to make heating hot water. The heating hot water systems are utilized to provide building heating and reheating.

The dedicated outside air system with enthalpy wheel reduced the needed capacity from the central plant by 23 tons of cooling in the summer and 454 MBh in the winter.