Dumbarton Oaks Farrand House, Washington, D.C., USA

Dumbarton Oaks Farrand House

Dumbarton Oaks Campus, in Georgetown - Washington DC, is an institute of Harvard University dedicated to supporting scholarship internationally in Byzantine, Garden and Landscape, and Pre-Columbian studies through fellowships, meetings, exhibitions, and publications.

Dumbarton Oaks - Farrand House is a new 10,000 sf facility building to be added to the campus to support the development of new educational and art programs. This 3-storey building will provide dedicated space for K-12 learning activities inspired by Dumbarton Oak’s collections and gardens, a studio dedicated to a new artist in residence program and a new Digital Humanities Lab space which will enhance access to their Library collection. The landscape and courtyards surrounding the building will be designed to bring together staff, scholars, and the public for a more open and collaborative dialogue.

Tracking for LEED Gold certification, a high-performance envelope increases resiliency while minimizing the energy consumption of the building. Controlled WWRs (window-to-wall ratios) together with bird friendly triple glazing and exterior movable venetian blinds allow to minimize thermal losses in winter as well as solar gains in summer. All the windows are manually operable to allow for periods of natural ventilation. When outside conditions are not favorable (too cold or too hot and humid), a DOAS unit with a high-performance heat recovery injects treated outside air in each room, according to their occupation. Space conditioning is provided by a mixture or radiant panels and radiant floors. Hot and chilled water is generated by a water-to-water heat pump coupled with 4 boreholes 500 feet deep. The resulting efficiency of this all-electric approach allows for the on-site photovoltaic panels on the roofto minimize the total operational carbon emissions of the building.

Aligned with the Harvard Healthier Materials guideline set by Harvard, Farrand House uses timber for the above ground superstructures in order to minimize its embodied carbon.