Rhode Island College, the Murray Center
The Murray Center was designed and constructed as a new health and physical education facility to replace the colleges former gymnasium, the Walsh Center, that had been lost to fire.
The building is comprised of approximately 72,300 square feet over three levels and houses classroom, administrative office and locker room spaces in addition to the gymnasium playing floor.
All classroom and administrative office spaces are provided with heating, air conditioning and ventilation via a variable air volume (VAV) air handling system with perimeter hydronic finned tube radiation. The gymnasium and locker room spaces are provided with heat and ventilation via dedicated, constant volume type air handling systems.
The source for heating energy is drawn from a connection to the campus’s central steam heating plant. The heating energy is delivered to the building’s various spaces through a forced hot water system, via a steam to hot water convertor rated at 4,760.0 mbh. Cooling energy is provided by a split system type air cooled chiller with cooling capacity of 63.0 tons.
Wilkinson Associates provided engineering design and construction administrative services related to the building’s heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems and for the required underground piping connections to the College’s central heating plant.
