Whitney Cyr
Managing Executive Editor
The new Technology, Design, and Safety Center is now open and ready for student and faculty use. Costing $16.3 million for a 53,000 square foot building, the center focuses on being an energy efficient space that gives students the resources and tools necessary to become professionals in the fields of sustainable product design, safety, and architecture. According to Interim President Dr. Jay Kahn, the building and its programs are very unique throughout New England.
“Our safety program is the largest of its type on the east coast. It fills a very important need in the workforce nationally. Architecture is the only public undergrad program in New England,” he said. According to Kahn, many jobs in the country involving product design are going unfilled, so the college’s programs and new center give students interested in the field unprecedented opportunities. Kahn said the center has brought the engagement of 70 manufacturing firms, which “bridges the student to workforce bridge,” Kahn said. “Together, our students will be ready for a variety of career opportunities. It meets twenty-first century workforce needs.”
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Associate professor of Technology, Safety, and Design Donna Paley said that professionals will be coming in from the outside to review the student work, which is a valuable resource and connection for students who will be entering the workforce. The building makes use of many windows to bring light into the space. “It’s an amazing, fabulous place to be in this sunlit space,” she said. She also noted that there are automatic shades that will go down and will regulate the amount of sunlight that enters the building.
Another highlighted feature of the center was the air conditioning. The expense of air conditioning a whole building is costly, but to preserve energy, the building will automatically let cool air from the outside in. Wayne Hartz, associate professor of Professional and Graduate Studies, said this feature ensures that the air in the building doesn’t need to be chilled, which greatly minimizes heat loss. Hartz gave tours of the facility during its open house last Thursday, noting some of the state-of-the-art technology, including a dummy named Rescue Randy that will help students understand the elements of a safe working environment. Hartz also said that the polished concrete floors saved a lot of money, as well as the solar hot water heater in the building.
“The faculty and students are excited about the building. It’s an opportunity to be in a fresh space, a state-of-the-art facility. The equipment gives students an opportunity to do projects that will serve them well in the future,” Hartz said.
Paley discussed some of the opportunities students and faculty will now have with the building. “We now have so many resources, where we used to have so few,” she said.
“There is a high content of recycled materials in the building as well as automation systems that limit mechanical systems,” Kahn said, speaking about the other highlights of the center. Some examples include motion detection in classrooms and labs, as well as the air being controlled by carbon dioxide detectors, so when more people are in the room breathing in oxygen, the room will automatically adjust itself based on the number of occupants.
In addition to the energy efficiency of the building, new technology is used to help students learn. Computers in the innovation lab help students “conceptualize ideas and will be sent to a station that allows the students to create it,” Hartz said.
The center will also have plenty of room for students to show off their work in spaces allocated for a gallery, in addition to a woodshop with a state-of-the-art dust exhaust system and wood finishing booth. While Kahn said the New Hampshire fire marshal gave permission for the building to be occupied and the construction made its completion deadline, there are still some “punch list items that have yet to be completed,” Kahn said. For instance, funds have been raised for a solar array, but it has not been built yet. A solar array will be used to create on-site energy for the building and for monitoring the solar collectors. The main goal of the center, Kahn said, is to create synergy among the programs, to pique the curiosity of the students on campus, create classrooms and labs for science classes, and make room for the nursing program. One of the major goals of the center is to produce on-site the same energy that will be used in the building. Initially, the goal was for the building to have a zero net energy use.
“We won’t reach that goal because of the significant mechanical energy used, however,” Kahn said. Overall, the students will be learning their fields of study in the building with new technology, and the center itself is a resource and learning tool on the construction of an energy-efficient, sustainable structure.
Will Ferguson, a junior, spoke about one of the programs he will be using throughout the school year to build his designs. “There is just some absolutely mind-blowing stuff that we can do on the programs,” he said. He demonstrated how some of the technology works in helping to create designs, noting that he can easily send some of his designs from the digital prototyping lab to a work station in the SPDI lab (short for Sustainable Product Design and Innovation).
The labs include several scanners as well as a 3-D scanner that will help students take their designs to the next level.“It’s awesome,” he said. “It’s a really big change from Ralston Street. This building will help the program grow in the future.”
Julia Brenker, a senior, said that building will be a great addition to the campus. “Being a senior in the safety department, I was used to the old building that was always too hot even if it was 30 degrees out,” she said. “This new building is a way for students to realize how serious our department is growing and how lucky we are to have this incredible new space and atmosphere to continue our studying.”
Kahn spoke about some of the new renovations the campus will be looking at undertaking in the next decade. “The last time we looked at what we needed, it was 2003 and 2004. We’re in need of a new plan. While we’ve accomplished a lot in housing, dining, the first phase of the MAC, Science Center, and TDS Center, other projects on the list weren’t addressed.” Some of those include a health and wellness center to accommodate those majors, an athletic/recreational center, an upgrade for the visual media arts center, as well as renovations to the Redfern and Elliot Hall.
“All of these will be addressed in the next master plan,” Kahn said.
As for now, the Technology, Design and Safety Studies majors will experience all the new resources and tools offered in the new building that serves to better prepare them to enter the workforce upon graduation.
Whitney Cyr can be contacted at
wcyr@keene-equinox.com.