Washington U. Adds Wind Turbines to Historic-District Building in Renovation Project

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Washington U. in St. Louis will add wind turbines to this building near its campus. (Google Maps image)

Not everyone agrees that rooftop wind turbines are attractive additions to buildings. But Washington University in St. Louis is putting seven turbines on top of a renovated building in a historic district and making them an architectural feature by illuminating them at night, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The newspaper says the units, which won approval from the St. Louis Preservation Board, will generate “a bit of the building’s electrical power and also provide a distinctive sight.”

The project, designed by Trivers Associates, is a rehabilitation of a three-story building at the intersection of Delmar and Skinker Boulevards, near the university’s campus. The building will have 16 student apartments on its second and third floors. The original renovation plan called for placing 14 turbines within a decorative framework, but the turbine manufacturer advised that the turbines needed more elbow room and that the framework would cut down on the amount of wind reaching them. There’s no word yet on how much power illuminating the turbines at night will use.

Other universities trying out building-mounted turbines include Arizona State, which put turbines on a building renovated for its Global Institute of Sustainability, and Yale, which has added turbines to Marcel Breuer’s 1970 Becton Center as an experiment.

The Global Institute of Sustainability occupies a renovated 1965 building. (Mark Boisclair Photography)

The Becton Center shows off its turbines. (Chronicle photograph by Lawrence Biemiller)