Why did they do that? It must have cost a lot.

Good design is in the details.  Elements that seem merely aesthetic can have multiple functions and hidden efficiencies. An intuitive flow into a room may have resulted from painstaking planning. Even in the location of building in relation to each other and their surroundings go beyond happenstance – when they have Design with Purpose.

Cost-effective Details
Sauk Rapids-Rice High School

When visitors drive up to the Sauk Rapids-Rice High School, they see several rooftop gables that add interest to the roofline. Entering the main Commons, they are greeted with spaciousness and natural light.

At first, these elements may seem to be extravagant components with no apparent function beyond aesthetics. Not true. The Commons design brings in enough natural light that artificial lighting may not be necessary even on cloudy days. That’s because photometric light sensors monitor the amount of light in the space, activating artificial lighting only when needed. Since electrical lighting is by far the biggest energy cost in a school building, this design feature, along with other energy-saving elements of the school’s design, will save the school district 43 percent, or $170,000 a year in energy costs.

Typically, mechanical rooms take up valuable and costly floor space. At the Sauk Rapids-Rice High School, mechanical equipment is housed within the eye-catching rooftop gables. Aesthetically, the design met the desire of the school district to break up the flat roofline of the school, but housing mechanical equipment in this way also allows equipment to be centered over the spaces it serves, creating a simpler distribution of systems that reduces cost. By utilizing cost-effective, insulated metal panels to enclose the spaces, these rooftop mechanical spaces cost one-third less than the typical cost of incorporating mechanical rooms within the school.

That’s Design with Purpose.