Knowlton architecture alumni Alex Mann (MArch ’15) and Jacqueline Stern (MArch ’15) were featured in Architectural Record for their contributions to Ohio State's Energy Advancement and Innovation Center (EAIC). Moody Nolan (co-founded by Curt Moody, [BSArch ’73]) was the architect of record. 

Principal firm Smith-Miller+Hawkinson worked alongside Ohio State faculty, researchers, and leadership to create a programming vision for the Energy Advancement and Innovation Center, a research facility that officially opened its doors in November 2023 and is expected to be 60 percent more efficient than a comparable baseline building.

Even more distinguishing is the EAIC’s 281-kilowatt array of 704 photovoltaic (PV) panels, held 9½ feet above its roofline in a ragged-edged canopy that overhangs its footprint. Combined with a nearly two-story-tall “Block O”—OSU’s logo—rendered in flexible white LED strip lights, the center embodies its mission as a living laboratory and incubator for academia and practitioners to research renewable energy and direct current (DC) power.

“Many in the industry believe a DC-powered future is possible, given the efficiencies available by distributing DC power throughout buildings,” says Lindsay Smith, principal at New York–based Smith-Miller+Hawkinson Architects (SM+H), the project’s design architect, which collaborated with architect of record Moody Nolan, headquartered locally in Columbus. “This was an opportunity to make a university building of scale that was using the direct current straight from the solar panel.”

Read more at Architectural Record