Renovation and expansion of HCC’s Aberdeen Hall

Jack McLaughlin
HBL Editor
11/13/09

The addition to Aberdeen Hall includes several computerized classrooms with interactive boards.

The rooftop solar hot water heating system warms the floor of the greenhouse directly behind it on the Aberdeen Hall roof.

Four 1,000 gallon tanks hold rainwater to flush toilets and water the greenhouse at Aberdeen Hall.

Community and business leaders joined with representatives of Harford Community College (HCC) Oct. 30 to mark the completion of the expansion and renovation of Aberdeen Hall.

Fifty four percent of the $12,425,929 cost of the project was paid for by the state, with Harford County providing 43 percent and the college 3 percent of the funding.
The 20,000 sq. ft, three story addition houses four biology laboratories, two chemistry labs and an instrumentation room.  The addition almost doubles the size of the original building, opened in 1964, that was renovated as part of the project.  The college’s science, technology, engineering and math building features a roof top greenhouse, lecture halls, classrooms, computerized labs and physics/physical science labs.
Many green features were incorporated into the expanded and renovated building.

Four 1,000 gallon cisterns collect rainwater used to flush toilets and water plants in the rooftop green house. Also on the roof is a solar hot water heating system, which warms the greenhouse floor. There are waterless urinals, low flow faucets and a bioretention pond that stores and cleans water before it is released into nearby streams.

The building’s design incorporates natural lighting and daylight sensors to turn off lights when possible.

Recycled materials are used in carpeting, ceiling tile, workstations and main lobby seating. Trees cut down for a construction project on campus were used to build a slat wall in the lobby. Wood used in the building was milled on the Thomas Saw Mill on Mountain Road.

Energy management systems control heating and cooling equipment. A weather station feeds information to the greenhouse to open dampers, turn on fans and close an overhead shading system.

Among those joining in the ribbon cutting for Aberdeen Hall were Dr. George W. Reid, Maryland Higher Education Commission Assistant Secretary for Planning and Academic Affairs; Harford County Executive David Craig; County Council President Billy Boniface; HCC President Dr. James LaCalle, representatives of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, members of Harford’s delegation to the Assembly, County Council, Harford Community College Foundation, faculty and staff.

The lobby of the building was named for former HCC student Heather Hurd, who was killed in a traffic accident in Florida in January 2008.  The Hurd family, which participated in the college’s naming opportunity donation program, was present at the Oct. 30 ceremonies. Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC, SURVICE Engineering, J. M. Huber Corp. and Upper Chesapeake Health also made donations to name laboratories in Aberdeen Hall.

For more about the program through which buildings, lobbies, classrooms and labs and conference and meeting rooms may be named for donors, call 443-412-2409 or go to www.harford.edu/foundation.

The expansion and renovation of Aberdeen Hall was celebrated a ribbon cutting on Oct. 30, about two years after the project began.