It’s 2016 and Loring Consulting Engineers is celebrating 60 years in business. To mark the occasion we welcome you to this e-messaging series, in which we will bring you highlights of our long history of designing state-of-the-art systems for many of the great public and private building projects of the day.
Welcome to six decades of innovation!
History in the Making
In 1956, Loring hit the ground running with its first project for the Schaefer Brewing Company in Brooklyn, NY. Just a few years later, in 1962, our growing firm was awarded the electrical engineering design for the world’s tallest buildings at the time, and among its most iconic–the 10-million-square foot World Trade Center complex. Other high-profile projects ensued: building systems for the 1.7-million-square foot. Citicorp Center in Manhattan and multiple IBM facilities at the dawn of the personal computing era. Innovators in our own right, in 1978 Loring brought daylight harvesting to IBM with twin curved parabolic reflectors integrated into the curtain wall of its Southfield, MI facility.
Ahead of the green-building revolution, in 1984, Loring was part of an award-winning international design team for the new Australian Parliament House, which featured the largest green roof to date. And when JFK Airport launched its Terminal One mega-project in 1996, our engineers provided energy modeling studies and MEP design to allow for a high-performance glazed façade that delivered extensive daylighting to the terminal, and garnered a national award for engineering excellence.
Smart Thinking, Yesterday…
Over the years, Loring has distinguished itself with engineering innovations that have left their mark on building design, including the modern laboratory. A Loring-designed system for Columbia University’s Sherman Fairchild Building in 1975 included two large enthalpy heat recovery wheels for laboratory exhaust, totaling 200,000 cubic feet per minute. Other notable Loring engineering advancements: in 1982, a variable volume air distribution and air flow tracking system for Exxon Corp.’s Research and Engineering Center in NJ; and in 1988, convertible dry-to-wet and conventional-to-clean room labs for AT&T’s Solid State Technology Center in PA and a Class 100 clean room for AIDS research for Merck in NJ.
...and Today
Loring’s story continues today with projects of every type, from researching alternative battery technologies and photovoltaics for the City of New York’s IDEA Initiative to designing MEP systems for pioneering physics labs at multiple leading universities; from providing energy audits and retro-commissioning on more than 12.5 million square feet of space in three years to achieving a Net Zero Energy Building for the Willow School in NJ. The Willow School’s trailblazing new 22,000-square foot. Health, Wellness and Nutrition Center is expected to earn LEED Platinum Certification and meet the International Living Future Institute’s (ILFI) Living Building Challenge certification requirements, a program that defines the most advanced measure of sustainability.
