Undisclosed

Confidential Technology Company

Architect

Austin Veum Robbins Partners/Griskelis Young Harrell

General Contractor

Turner Construction Special Projects Division

Engineer

Building Engineering Systems, LLC
 

Electrical Contractor

Gibson Electric

Project Duration

Approximately 6 months

Classroom with computers at each station

Value Delivered

Versatile new marketing space; a large modern office environment; more efficient space management; innovative customer training capabilities; increased energy efficiency and reduced energy costs.

Client Objectives

To create new, energy-efficient office and customer spaces, while accommodating increased power requirements.

Solutions

When one of the world’s leading technology companies wanted versatile new office and customer training spaces in downtown Chicago, they chose Gibson Electric to supply the power. 

The 2 1/2-story project covered 68,000 square feet of an existing building. One floor consisted of a customer training facility with nine state-of-the-art conference rooms, various training centers and a 2,500-square-foot Envisioning Center.

This mini-theater contained stadium seating, a stage for presenting live demonstrations, and a custom theatrical lighting and dimming system. Gibson rigged all piping for the theatrical lighting fixtures, installed the sophisticated theatrical dimming system and put in energy conserving cold-cathode stage backlighting.

Gibson’s scope of work also included adding new distribution panels to accommodate the facility’s expanded power needs, as well as approximately 100,000 feet of electrical raceways for various electrical systems, including lighting, lighting control, audio-visual and teledata. To ensure maximum reliability, the company supplemented the teledata installation with 40- and 80-kilowatt uninterruptible power supply systems.

Gibson also installed backbone raceways for a Crestron scheduling and control system. This system combines centralized room scheduling with responsive operation of each room’s mecho-shades, projection screen, audio components and other equipment. The system also interfaces with the facility’s energy-efficient Lutron dimming system.

On the office floors, the company performed all electrical systems work, including installation of lighting, teledata and system devices. In addition to installing the energy saving Lutron controls in conference rooms, the company put a daylight harvesting system in the open office space.

Using an astronomical time clock, this system’s digital photo sensors detect daylight levels and automatically balance those levels with electrical lighting to create the proper output, an approach that significantly reduces energy consumption.