Emerson College

The new Emerson College Los Angeles Center, located on Sunset Boulevard amidst the studios of Hollywood, provides a permanent location for the college’s internship program, both for its instructional/administrative facilities and its residential student housing. The building is a dramatic 10-story, 240,000 SF superstructure that takes the shape of an open cube with two residential towers surrounding a glazed academic pavilion. This hybrid classroom and residence hall also includes retail facilities, administrative spaces, student rooms, faculty apartments, multipurpose performance and audio/visual teaching spaces; along with outdoor terraces and a 3-level, 120,000 SF carpark.

Early on in the design, Buro Happold performed sunlight path analysis and massing studies to assist Morphosis in determining the optimum arrangement for the building program to avoid overshadowing and excessive solar gain. By doing this the design optimizes the building facade. The design also incorporates an automatic shading system on the east and west towers to reduce solar gain and maximize daylight. The sun shades are programmed to track the position of the sun and respond to weather-based conditions as well.

Also early in the design process, the team performed solar and daylight analysis which informed the engineers that the use of chilled beams to provide heating and cooling would be the most efficient and cost effective solution. Chilled water is only provided to dormitory spaces when comfort conditions cannot be met via natural ventilation alone, thus maximizing energy savings. The building also incorporates a solar thermal array to generate domestic hot water, while the lighting systems have reduced lighting power densities and extensive use of local occupancy and/or dimming controls.

Emerson College adheres to the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). As such, the College began the process of pursuing campus opportunities that will help it reach the goal of carbon neutrality by the year 2030. Aiming for a minimum LEED-Silver rating, the Los Angeles Center delivers advanced green building initiatives including radiant heating and cooling, window contacts to facilitate natural ventilation, operable sunshades, user controlability, and solar thermal collectors. The project is expected to achieve a 15% energy cost savings over baseline figures and a 31% reduction of potable water use in all fixtures.

• 10-story 240,000 SF
• 3-level, 120,000 SF carpark
• Sophisticated hydronic heating and cooling system
• Computerized building management system
• Roof photovoltaic system
• LEED Silver

Related Disciplines

• Building services engineering