Dartmouth College Irving Institute for Energy and Society

The Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society is a new, sustainably designed hub for several academic programs at Dartmouth College, including the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability, and Innovation; Dartmouth’s Sustainability Office and Climate Modeling and Impacts Group; as well as several faculty and research groups from Thayer School of Engineering and Tuck School of Business. These teams focus on advancing affordable, sustainable and reliable energy sources for all of society.

Acentech provided acoustics, telecommunications, security and audiovisual system consulting to design firm Goody Clancy.

The building’s diverse program and offerings promote interdisciplinary collaboration. A large, central atrium serves as a hub for study, informal meetings and collaboration. Goody Clancy’s energy-saving strategies feature radiant flooring and ceilings (heated and cooled by water), heat recovery systems, access to natural ventilation and daylighting throughout the facility, and solar arrays on the roof.

Acentech’s acoustics consultants guided the design team on room acoustics, sound isolation and mechanical system noise/vibration control. We ensured speech privacy in offices and huddle spaces, and speech intelligibility in the conference rooms and lecture halls. Our Technology group provided planning, design, and construction administration for audiovisual, telecommunications and security systems. The facility’s new AV-enabled spaces include classrooms, conference rooms, project labs, plus a larger boardrooms style meeting space. These featured a variety of technologies, such as wired and wireless presentation capabilities, web conferencing, lecture capture, and room scheduling to name a few. Additionally, to support the projects sustainability efforts, all spaces included Vacancy Sensors, to automatically turn off the AV systems if the room was unoccupied, and a remote “AV helpdesk” capability, with IP-cameras and network based AV controls.

The new Irving Institute has already won a sustainable design award from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and promises to be a vibrant new home to energy researchers, lecturers and Dartmouth students for decades to come.