Hi folks

I wanted to bring you up to date on some of the recent design work being done on Lewis Hall. During the past three weeks we have been asked to decide about the cooling systems for Lewis Hall and the addition. As you can see on the attached document, the architects presented two options: Option A-Full Mechanical cooling, or Option B-a mixture of mechanical cooling and natural ventilation. Option A and B have pros and cons.

After much consultation and deliberation, I have decided to move ahead with Option A--full mechanical cooling. I make this decision knowing that there is a variance of opinion in our community regarding the costs and benefits of both options.

I met with iSchool staff this past week in order to gather input from individuals in our community who will be working in the new building particularly across the months of summer, a time when cooling systems have the greatest impact. Our staff are passionate about environmental sustainability and expressed this clearly and emphatically. It was also very apparent from our open discussion that control over the interior temperature of the building is a critical, quality-of-working-life issue. With full mechanical systems, we come close to guaranteeing that the interior temperature of the building will be comfortable for the majority of the occupants. The mixed-method approach in Option B does not provide this guarantee. However we interpret the data, there will be days in the summer when the temperature inside the building will exceed the desired comfort level of our community, which would reduce the quality of their working life. I'm sure that we could survive these days of extreme temperature and we could all work together to open windows and vents that will mitigate discomfort to some extent; however, there are still uncertainties about the efficacy of the mixed-mode ventilation option, even when the community is working together to maximize its effect.

This decision reflects our commitment to the quality of the working environment of our faculty, staff and students. We remain committed to environmental sustainability, and we will attain LEED silver status for the Lewis Hall building. We will also continue to express iSchool values in all our design decisions.

Harry

Harry Bruce
Dean and Professor
The Information School
Box 352840
University of Washington
vm. 206 616 0985; fax. 206 616 3152
www.ischool.washington.edu

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