Facilities
In addition to the common departmental facilities and resources, the Building Systems Program has two unique laboratories. The Illumination Laboratory provides a facility to test and evaluate architectural lighting systems as well as daylighting and lighting control systems.
The Larson Building Systems Laboratory is a unique facility in the HVAC industry. It is used for educational and research purposes and is designed for dynamic testing of complete and full-scale commercial HVAC and building systems. The facility consists of a full-size commercial HVAC system, four representative commercial building zones, a system for producing repeatable and controllable loads on the HVAC system, and sophisticated data acquisition and control systems.
Activities at the Laboratory include evaluation and testing of control algorithms and hardware for HVAC components and systems, interactions between multiple control functions of HVAC systems, the dynamic interactions between building thermal response and HVAC system controls, ventilation control for indoor air quality, and HVAC system diagnostics.