ALL RENDERINGS COURTESY KIERANTIMBERLAKE/STUDIO AMD
DEFINING A PARADIGM Building 661 in the Philadelphia Navy Yard is a Georgian-style brick building constructed during World War II. It served as a recreation center for more than 50 years until it was shuttered in the mid-1990s when naval operations left the shipyard. The building stood vacant for nearly 20 years as investors and city planners began to transform the Navy Yard into the burgeoning urban development it is today. By David Riz, AIA
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Abundantly daylit through punch windows and skylights, with roofs supported by beautiful wood trusses, Building 661 is emblematic of buildings of similar age, composition, and size throughout Philadelphia and the region. They are still useful, but they often lack the modern systems to keep them operating efficiently. Building 661 is now in the midst of a revival aimed at proving the potential of advanced energy retrofits to reduce energy consumed in the commercial buildings sector by 20 percent by the year 2020. Though the building is modest in size, it offers a mighty proposi-
tion that - if heeded - could have huge effects not only on how buildings are upgraded, but on how architects, engineers, builders, and owners interact in the process. At the helm of the revival is the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub, a consortium of academic institutions, federal laboratories, global industry partners, regional economic development agencies, and other stakeholders led by Penn State that joined forces to secure up to $130 million in federal grants from the Department of Energy in 2011. The charge of the EEB Hub is to establish the Philadelphia region as a national center for energy efficiency research, educa-