A state-of-the-art building to prepare Illinois students for futures of purpose and impact and a partnership between Gies Business and campus, this hybrid educational facility will house collaboration spaces, traditional and flexible classrooms, informal learning environments, content creation studios, academic offices and support spaces. This project has deep green aspirations, seeking grant funding for a $7.1 million district-scale geothermal field providing heating and cooling for the building, a campus first, with expansion potential to surrounding facilities. The project is targeting LEED platinum certification with aspirations to achieve net zero energy and net zero carbon within its first year of operation.

The project achieves a low energy use intensity (EUI) with a suite of measures including a chilled beam heating and cooling system, high efficiency lighting and equipment, and passive desiccant humidity control. The project showcases how new construction projects can exceed iCAP goals and emissions reductions by reducing dependence on the Abbott Power Plant via a $7.1 million district-scale geothermal field providing heating and cooling for the building, a campus first, with expansion potential to surrounding facilities. The load of the chilled beam system for heating and cooling requires 273 tons (2,520,000 Btu/hour) of heating and cooling capacity. With the $500,000 requested, the project can take 100% of that load and utilize the ground‐source system to provide the heating and cooling needed through a combination of the stored thermal energy and electrical energy. The implementation of efficient building systems and the ground-source system will reduce source energy and carbon emissions by 58%. The project builds on a new paradigm established with the Campus Instructional Facility, expanding the network of deep green infrastructure and drastically reducing energy reliance on the Abbott Power Plant. In this case, the system goes one step further delivering 100% of the building’s heating and cooling load.