The new S. J. Quinney College of Law building on the University of Utah campus features a combination of innovative ideas to form one original, state-of-the-art engineered system. At the foundation of the mechanical system, and quite literally at the foundation of the building, is a 375,000-gallon thermal storage tank. Unlike most stratified thermal storage tanks, the Quinney Law storage tank is short, only 12 ft deep, and is designed around a very small temperature difference of only 4°F. The temperature difference is small because the tank is designed to be cooled by irrigation water.
In addition to a shallow irrigation-cooled thermal storage tank, the building features a chilled beam system that allowed the floor-to-floor height to decrease from standard VAV system requirements, reducing the building height to just under high-rise classification, saving the project around $500,000 in reduced envelope and mechanical costs.