Engineers turn outdated warehouse into LEED Gold college facility
When Randolph Community College in Asheboro, NC, went looking for a new educational facility, they looked in the most unlikely of places: a former 46,000-sq-ft furniture plant. However, engineers and architects were able to transform this uninsulated brick and shell building into the college’s new Continuing Education and Industrial Center. They were also able to earn a LEED Gold certification when they were finished.
Consulting engineering firm Progressive Design Collaborative teamed up with architecture firm Smith Sinnett Architecture to make the transformation happen. With the encouragement of RCC’s Cindi Goodwin, director of facilities at the Asheboro, NC-based technical school, the team says it designed one of the nation’s first combination of active chilled beams with an off-peak hours ice storage/chilled water loop.