Clemson University dedicates 'the building that teaches'

Published: April 13, 2012

The renovated Lee Hall was dedicated Friday. image by: Patrick Wright/Clemson University

CLEMSON — A week before Earth Day, under sunny skies illuminating exterior and interior spaces, hundreds of Clemson University faculty, staff, students and friends gathered Friday to dedicate one of the most energy-efficient academic buildings in the United States. The recent $31.6 million restoration, renovation and expansion of academic building Rudolph Lee Hall complex is complete.
 
“We are now poised to realize fully the vision of Lee Hall as the building that teaches,” said Clemson President James F. Barker, FAIA. “In it, students will learn from their teachers, from each other and from the building itself because the new Lee Hall will be a model of sustainable design for the 21st century.”

Lee Hall houses programs in architecture, art, city and regional planning, construction science and management, landscape architecture and real estate development.

Simple as 1-2-3, students, faculty and visitors in Lee Hall can study in and transverse from a space listed on the National Register of Historical Places that once was the most modern building on campus to a new energy-efficient, sustainable, collaborative facility for the future.
 
The original Lee Hall (Lee I) was designed by Clemson’s first dean of architecture, the late Harlan McClure, and constructed in 1957-58. In 2010, the National Park Service placed it on the National Register of Historic Places. In the 1970s, an addition provided some extra classroom, office and studio space (Lee II). There was another small addition in the 1990s (also Lee II), before this recently completed 55,000-square-foot expansion (Lee III).

Clemson alumnus Thomas Phifer (’75, ‘77) and Partners of New York designed Lee III in collaboration with McMillan Pazdan Smith Architecture of Greenville and Holder Construction of Atlanta.

The building is zero-energy-ready, designed to offset all of its energy consumption with its own renewable energy. Energy savings began with the decision to use construction materials, some with recycled content, from sources within 500 miles of campus. This reduced the carbon footprint of the project, a key factor in sustainability.

An energy dashboard provides real-time data on temperature, humidity, energy and water use. Heating and cooling are geothermal. Natural light is provided by 53 external and internal skylights. The skylights and window walls minimize the need for lighting during daylight hours.

Building occupants check monitors that indicate when conditions are conducive to natural ventilation, provided through both manually and mechanically operated windows.

The 30,000-square-foot sedum roof is the largest university Garden Roof in the southeastern United States. Pervious paving materials on the site allow stormwater to seep into the ground instead of municipal treatment systems.

Studio workstations were designed by students and faculty in Clemson’s School of Architecture, the only one in South Carolina.

“The Lee Hall project is a testament to determination, creativity and collaboration,” said Richard Goodstein, dean of Clemson’s College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities. “We celebrate those who each day fill this building with ideas, energy, inspiration and engagement.”

Barker reminisced about his parallel history with Lee Hall.

“Harlan McClure’s original design concept for the mid-century modern Lee Hall was bold, open and collaborative,” he said. “It inspired me. It looked and functioned like no other space on our campus at that time. My classmates and I shared a learning experience that shaped all of us in profound ways.

“So, as a former student, I can look back at the original Lee Hall — Lee I — with nostalgia and tremendous affection. As a former dean, I can look at Lee II — the 1970s and 1990s additions — as a pragmatic solution to an overcrowding problem.

“And as the current president of Clemson University, I look at Lee III with a mixture of wonder, pride and joy. It is simply breathtaking in its beauty, and admirable in its functionality as an energy-efficient, low-impact building.   

“The completion of Lee III brings these three separate facilities into a functioning, cohesive whole. This restoration, renovation and expansion also brings us back to the roots of Lee as an open, collaborative learning space.  

“I could not be prouder nor happier than I am today,” he said. 

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