Getting Advanced at Georgia Tech

Georgia Institute of Technology is almost ready to welcome its Advanced Computing Building

By R. Carter Langston

The Christopher Klaus Advanced Computing Building on the Georgia Institute of Technology's Atlanta campus promises to be a gateway to learning. With its underground parking deck, it likely will also be a gateway to the entire campus.

The building, funded in part by a $15 million donation from alumnus Christopher W. Klaus, is wedged between Fifth Street and the College of Computing and is on schedule for completion in May. The overall budget for the project was $62 million.

The 200,000-sq.-ft. building, which consists of a concrete deck and columns with an exterior of brick and ceramic frit-coated glass façade, sits on a prominent three-acre site and connects two existing buildings with a third-story breezeway that effectively interconnects the College of Computing and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

"In a dramatic way, the building echoes the curvature of the road that it fronts and is an impressive entry into the campus," said Ellen Zegura, professor and associate dean of the College of Computing. "The building will bring together approximately 100 researchers from the College of Computer Engineering, 400 graduate students, five classrooms, a 200-seat auditorium and research and teaching labs for greater collaboration."

Designed by Perkins & Will Architects of Atlanta, the building and site feature some characteristics that might help the institute's bid for its second silver LEED rating.

"It was a difficult site," said Gary McNay, project manager with Perkins & Will. "The building is built on a curve and faces east, which is not the ideal situation for energy conservation."

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Other design elements might help toward a LEED designation. The concrete used in most of the construction contains a high percentage of fly ash, McNay said.

Fly ash is the most commonly used coal combustion byproduct and cost-effectively improves the performance of concrete. According to the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, concrete containing fly ash is easier to work with because the tiny, glassy beads create a lubricating effect that fills microscopic air pockets and strengthens the mixture. Not only is the resulting concrete more dense and durable, fly ash reacts chemically with lime that is given off by cement hydration, creating more of the glue that holds concrete together. Using fly ash as a building product keeps the waste material out of landfills.

Additionally, the ceramic frit-coated glass allows concentrated light into the building's inner corridors, while reducing heat and glare. Interior designs further maximize the natural light into inner-most spaces. And interior lighting fixtures automatically adjust to augment the presence of natural light.

Ceramic frit-coated glass features tiny dots embedded inside the glass and is most commonly recognized in automotive contexts. In this construction, the dots act to maximize light penetration into the building and insulate against radical temperature shifts. Further capitalizing on the energy-saving light that the exterior glass provides, interior spaces feature open designs and glass enclosures. Interior lights adjust automatically to solar conditions, McNay said.

"During sunny days, interior lights will automatically adjust to augment at (maybe) a 10 percent level," he said as an example. "On cloudy days, the lights may go to a 60 percent level and at night, the interior lights would automatically adjust to 100 percent. This provides further energy efficiency."

"The Klaus Advanced Computing Building was designed to be about 38 percent more energy efficient than the code requires," McNay added.

The building design incorporates a three-level underground parking deck and a stormwater and condensate retention system that circulates back into the landscape through the institute's irrigation system.

And the construction team, with W.G. Yates & Sons Construction Co. of Atlanta, has had its challenges.

Construction delays started almost immediately after groundbreaking, said Ron LeRoy, Georgia Tech's facilities project manager.

"The extensive rain during 2004 caused an 11-day delay in June alone," he said. "Then it took 32 days to blast through 35 ft. of rock for the underground parking deck. Relocating underground utilities presented another set of challenges."

During the rain delays, contractors installed two cisterns on campus to collect air-conditioning condensate and stormwater runoff.

"We put a cistern in a little ahead of schedule," LeRoy said. "It made sense for them to do that because they had the staff available to work on it."

LeRoy and Zegura anticipate the underground parking, enough for about 540 spaces, will allow the institute to convert at least one surface lot to a park in the central part of the campus.