Green Features of the Paresky Center
Architect:  Polshek Partnership Architects
Date completed: Spring 2007
Function: Student Center
Square Footage:  72,000 square feet
Energy use in 2007: To be determined
Energy use per square foot: To be determined
Paresky Center, which replaces Baxter Hall, includes a variety of innovative features designed to reduce energy and resource needs. The building includes several dining venues, a performance space, student mailboxes, a great hall, meeting rooms for student organizations and more. Construction of Paresky and demolition of the 58,000 square foot Baxter Hall were carefully designed to use regional materials, minimize waste, and reduce the use of toxic materials.

Deconstruction of Baxter Hall and Construction Waste
Reduction of Energy Requirements
Choice of Materials
Building Operations

Reduction of Energy Requirements

 The largest energy requirements in most institutional buildings are for heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting. The Paresky Center includes many features that reduce the amount of energy that each of those systems requires.


Stoves equiped with Intellihoods.
1: infrared sensor that monitors for smoke.
2: temperature sensor.

Occupancy sensor over a door in the Paresky Center.
Look for the sensors in offices, meeting spaces and the reading room.
Occupancy Sensors and Intellihoods: Heating, cooling, and lighting an unoccupied space to the same degree as an occupied one wastes energy. Excessive ventilation is doubly energy inefficient, as electricity runs the ventilation system and energy is required to heat or cool the incoming outside air. Sensors in the Paresky Center ensure that unoccupied spaces are only minimally heated, cooled, and lit. They also sense whether daylight provides sufficient illumination and reduce artificial lighting accordingly. Carbon dioxide (CO2) monitors are used to adjust ventilation. Similarly, hoods used in Paresky cooking areas draw in more air than ventilation elsewhere in the building, and could waste large amounts of energy. An Intellihood system monitors the air stream at the cooking hoods and adjusts fan performance as required to exhaust cooking fumes and grease.

Compact fluorescent bulb in a ceiling fixture in the Paresky Center.
Fluorescent Lighting: Fluorescent lighting uses up to 75% less electricity than other lighting (including traditional incandescent bulbs). Fluorescent lighting, either tube or compact, was used wherever feasible in the Paresky Center: over 80% of the lighting fixtures in the Paresky Center are fluorescent.

Insulation: The Paresky Center is very well insulated. It has R values as high as R25 in the walls and R72 in the roof; Massachusetts Code requires only R7 in walls and R19 in roofs. A highly insulated building retains more heat in the winter and stays cooler in the summer, and thus requires less energy to heat or cool.

Sunshade on the south side of the Paresky Center
Solar Shade: The solar shade integrated into the building design on the south side reduces the heating load during the summer by preventing some sunlight from entering the building. The sun is lower in the sky during the winter, so the sun shade will not prevent warming winter sunlight from entering the building.



Honeycombed airfloor during installation
Radiant Floor: The Center also has a state-of-the-art honeycombed air radiant floor system. Heated or cooled air circulates through the floor before being released at the perimeter to ventilate the room. In the winter, the floor absorbs heat from the circulating air and radiates it in to the room. The warm air rises, creating an even temperature throughout the room. In the summer, the floor absorbs heat from the room, and loses it to the cooler air circulating through the honeycombs.

View an animation of how the airfloor was constructed and how it works.
(Animation courtesy of Airfloor.com)