Denton Hall Renovation

Design Collective was charged by the University of Maryland to renovate Denton Hall, a nine-story, 115,108 GSF residence hall constructed in the early 1960’s. The renovation of this high-rise included the installation of building wide HVAC, replacement windows, facade improvements, new interior walls, electrical upgrades, miscellaneous modifi cations, renovations and improvements to accommodate new building systems.

The first component was to improve the overall energy efficiency of the facility by replacing the original aluminum windows with new, thermally-broken high performance aluminum windows. Along the exterior walls of the resident rooms, lounges and other spaces, insulation was added at the exterior wall and a new metal stud wall with abuse resistant panels was built to enclose the new insulation. That metal stud wall also houses electrical outlets to provide for the upgraded electrical service, the second component of the renovations.

The final component was to install a new two-pipe, dual temperature system to allow for heating and cooling of the building using fan coil units in all spaces.

The building, originally opened in 1964, required three phases of construction to allow the building to be occupied throughout the school year; the installation of windows and facade improvements occurred in the summer of 2009 with the electrical and HVAC upgrades occurring across the summers of 2010 and 2011. The project consisted of two diff erent sets of construction documents, two diff erent review schedules and two diff erent bid schedules to accommodate the phased construction.