Pratt Uses I/T Network at Myrtle Hall for New Building Systems
Pratt Institute in Brooklyn New York has recently opened Myrtle Hall a new 120,000-square-foot LEED Gold Building. The building was designed and built with various Eco Design features for occupant comfort and energy management. The Pratt Brooklyn Campus is over 100 years old. The Myrtle Hall building was based on the campus need for additional space and they wanted to use the most advanced technologies for this project. Pratt also had a vision of using the Universities IT Infrastructure as the Network Backbone of all Systems in the new building.
In many campuses today, the IT Infrastructure is used for building systems based on the need for advanced communications throughout a campus. In recent years, systems have also included sharing technologies for Web Applications and other functions such as email alerts. On this project, the requirement was to use all field devices in building systems to be connected on the IT Network through dedicated I/P addresses. The systems include the Phone System, Card Readers, Cameras, Electrical Metering and the Energy Management System.
The requirement for each System Mfg was to use the Campus I/P Network only for Panel to Panel Communications. There couldn’t be any dedicated communications network installed by the vendors. This approach forced the vendors to rethink how they would design, install and service these systems. The advantage to this design is that it reduced electrical installations costs from all systems vendors for the project and it used the capabilities of a managed IT Network to make systems communicate more efficiently. When you are in any area of the building, all systems are speaking over the campus network just the same way a computer is connected to the campus network. The one risk to this design was the potential for network traffic to cause problems across systems. Pratt’s IT Staff was able to correct this with the use of managed switches for the network. These managed switches have the intelligence to route the network traffic based on priority levels across all systems. This system architecture also gives the IT Staff the ability to review the network and make decisions for modifications and future enhancements.
Another advantage to the system is the ability to use data across systems for effective operations. For example, if the Automated Logic - Energy Management System, WebCTRL is scheduled for an area to be Unoccupied After Hours, the HVAC and Lighting Systems will be shutoff or setback. With the shared network communications backbone, the Card Reader System automatically sends an Occupancy signal to the WebCTRL System to automatically turn the HVAC and Lighting Systems zones on if an area of the building is being used After Hours. This is determined based on a number of occupants swiping their cards who have access to a certain area of the building. This integration of these two systems gives the building the capability for Automated Energy Management based on Real-time Occupancy that reduces cooling, heating and lighting use and energy cost savings. This also reduces the operations staff time required to reactivate systems based on various events occurring After Hours in the building.
Recently we discussed the results of the Integrated I/P Building Systems for Myrtle Hall Project with Stephen Brennan the Director of Maintenance & Operations at Pratt Institute. When we asked him if the campus would consider another building with this approach, he replied,
“In a heartbeat, it’s too simple, efficient and there was immense savings in trade costs for this project. In the future we would like to do all our new construction like this and we will do everything possible to take advantage of technology and resources to reduce our carbon footprint at Pratt Institute”.
By: Christine Vander Ploeg and James McDermott