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The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College

Pomona, California, USA

º£½ÇÊÓƵ delivered integrated engineering and sustainability expertise for the Benton Museum of Art, optimizing climate control for conservation areas while minimizing energy use. Through zoning, passive strategies, and an energy measurement and verification plan, the team helped achieve Pomona College’s ambitious energy goals and LEED Gold certification—ensuring both artifact preservation and long-term efficiency.

The Museum is located on a prominent site between Claremont Village and the city’s civic center. The 33,000ft² facility accommodates direct engagement with works of art, curricular use of collections and exhibitions, social and academic programs, specialist storage, conservatory facilities and ease of access for a growing permanent collection of more than 14,000 objects.

The 33,000ft² facility accommodates direct engagement with works of art alongside specialist conservatory facilities.

The temperature and humidity controls needed to preserve sensitive artifacts, had to be balanced with Pomona College’s stringent energy use intensity (EUI) requirements.

We conducted an energy analysis, demonstrating how trade-offs could be achieved by minimizing mechanical cooling in the less critical parts of the building.

Our experts advised on the use of specialist magnetic bearing chillers.

Challenge

º£½ÇÊÓƵ provided insight and design input around , energy consulting and , as well as the development of an energy measurement and verification plan.

The museum encourages active learning and creative explorations across disciplines, and among the visual arts, performing arts, the humanities, and the natural and social sciences.

With two spaces dedicated purely to the conservation of historic art works, the project required specialist building environment infrastructure to maintain a carefully balanced heat and humidity level in the areas where more delicate works are stored and worked on. These exacting requirements would have to be carefully balanced against the college’s aspiration to minimize its operation carbon intensity.

In the summer, the region experiences the Santa Ana winds – known for producing hot, dry conditions, often associated with wildfires in the region. So cooling solutions would need to be impactful, but as passive as possible, to mitigate against raising the energy intensity of the building.

Solution

Designed by Machado Silvetti Associates, with Gensler as the architect of record, The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College provides a space for some of Southern California’s most compelling and experimental exhibitions. The new structure with cast-in-place concrete walls is accented with wood, glass and a distinctive sloping roofline. Built to LEED Gold sustainability standards, the U-shaped museum defines a central courtyard, with space for events.

The sophisticated temperature and humidity controls, demanded by the need to preserve sensitive artifacts and artworks, had to be balanced with Pomona College’s stringent energy use intensity (EUI) requirements, to keep the building in line with the institution’s wider sustainability plan.

Our specialists conducted in-depth energy analysis, demonstrating to the client and the wider design team how trade-offs could be achieved by minimizing mechanical cooling in the less critical parts of the building, to help balance the more intensive performance of the systems in the conservation areas. Zoning enabled temperature set-backs in non-critical spaces and during unoccupied periods.

The concrete building’s thermal mass also helped to absorb some of the heat, while other passive measures incorporated into the design included areas of external shading created by strategic planting, covered porticos and carefully considered glazing choices.

The range of interventions to meet the College’s EUI requirements also ensured the project achieved LEED Gold certification. Ongoing evaluation of energy consumption provided valuable feedback that helps to reduce energy consumption over time, saving considerable energy over the life of a building. LEED recognizes the value of measurement and verification with credits that will help achieve ongoing accountability of energy consumption and to demonstrate that low energy building features are delivering energy savings.

Value

Our multidisciplinary team delivered an integrated approach to achieving high levels of energy efficiency for the building from the earliest concept stages of design. We worked closely with the client, with an optioneering process around delivering impactful building infrastructure solutions, while ensuring a balance of project costs and energy efficiencies.

Our energy modelling also factored-in resiliency considerations around predicted temperature increases in the region as a consequence of climate change, helping to future-proof the cooling systems for the next generation of building users.