A sparkling mixed-use live/work/play development utilizing VELUX Venting Modular Skylights system for both natural light and passive ventilation
Once an abandon historic building, 500 Seneca is now a vibrant community asset with living units, commercial office space on five floors, exciting retail components, a unique cultural space and a large multi-story interior green atrium area as well as a rooftop garden. It is a sparkling mixed-use live/work/play development utilizing a VELUX Venting Modular Skylights (VMS) system for both natural light and passive ventilation.
The adaptive reuse of this mixed-use historic building carried several unique challenges. Our intention was to preserve this piece of history, while simultaneously providing modern building standards and amenities. We chose the Velux VMS skylight system because of its truly minimalistic design characteristics. It offered simple, classic and elegant features which were capable of complementing our existing building’s characteristics.
A mixture of 128 fixed and venting skylight modules cover the atrium ceiling providing daylight and ventilation to those below. Eight-foot tall skylight modules line the center Ridgelights. The nearly 3.5 foot wide modules allow for quick coverage of such large roof openings. With glass insulated units nearly 1.5 inches thick, it was easy to see how VELUX could achieve a .24 solar heat gain coefficient and help make the space below very energy efficient. Coupled with numerous venting skylight modules that can easily be integrated into the building’s HVAC for automatic climate control and rain/heavy wind sensor override functionality, the VELUX Ridgelights help achieve an accelerated ROI by reducing overall building HVAC loads.