Site Visit: Calgary's New Central Library

Select HeatLink® staff were recently invited to visit the new Calgary Central Library, which is currently under construction in the city’s revitalized East Village.  There they had the opportunity to see our radiant heating and cooling systems in various stages of installation.

The striking design of the New Central Library presented several challenges, the largest being the windows which almost exclusively make up the exterior, creating high heat loss during the winter, and high solar heat gains in both winter and summer.  In order to overcome these heat losses and heat gains, the system design required multiple configurations of interior and perimeter radiant heating and cooling, and ceiling cooling to manage the loads.

Quick Facts:

• The perimeter ramps carry tubing that can be used for heating or cooling.
• The ceiling cooling system is accented by hollow building-width cement “beams” containing a loop of tubing installed beneath the rebar and against the cement. (While this offered us a challenge in design, it was less taxing than the job of the installers who had to crawl into the space.)
• The theatre cooling is regulated both by the tubing in the slab (seats and steps), and by outside air flowing through the slab and out through venting in the steps.

Already an architectural focal point of our vibrant city, once finished the New Central Library will be a fantastic addition to the East Village, and to the city, and HeatLink® is proud to be a part of this piece of our future.