Project Delivery Forum: Changing Your Practice

Changing options for project delivery transform how we manage our clients, our staff, our liabilities. The available tools and technology to deliver successful projects are developing at an exponential pace. Managing multiple delivery methods in the same office becomes increasingly complex, raising not only logistical and managerial issues, but also critical legal and insurance concerns. Join a series of industry expert panels and presenters to examine the present and the future of project delivery, see the latest technologies at work, and learn how to best incentivize collaboration and share accountability while raising the bar on performance.

The 2011 AIA IPD conference drew 200 passionate and interested professionals for a day of insights, education and lively dialog. Join this year’s interdisciplinary discussion about trends in project delivery and how they affect the way we will design and build in the next decade.

Keynote Speaker:

Erleen Hatfield AIA, PE LEED BSAS, MSCE
Principal, Buro Happold, New York

Erleen joined Buro Happold in 2009 as principal in the New York office. She has over 18 years of experience in the structural design of a range of complex projects including sports facilities, commercial, residential, and academic buildings. She frequently lectures on innovation and new technologies in engineering and architecture, including Building Information Modeling and new collaboration processes.

She sits on numerous national industry committees including the American Institute of Steel Construction Building Information Modeling Committee, the American Concrete Institute Committee on BIM and the Applied Technology Council-Committee 81. Locally in New York, she is the co-chair of the American Institute of Architects New York Technology Committee and a past director of the Structural Engineers Association of New York. In addition, she teaches graduate architecture classes at Yale University and gives regular lectures at Pratt University, New York. She is a registered professional engineer.

For more information on the program, please go to: http://www.aiaseattle.org/ProjDel2012

Thank you to our steering committee: Ted Sive, Lindsey Pflugrath, Troy Thrun, Dace Campbell, David Walsh.

Many Thanks to our Forum Sponsors:
Wiss Janney Elstner Associates Inc.
In-Kind Contributor: ZGF Architects LLP

ASHRAE Technology Awards Highlight Outstanding Building Projects

ATLANTA – Engineers play a vital role in their communities, working to provide safe, comfortable and energy efficient buildings for everyone from students to firefighters. The winners of the 2013 ASHRAE Technology Awards have proven the value of engineering in their communities with the design of a fire station, hospital, university recreation center, nature museum, offices and even a national energy laboratory.

The ASHRAE Technology Awards recognize outstanding achievements by members who have successfully applied innovative building design.  Their designs incorporate ASHRAE standards for effective energy management and indoor air quality. The awards communicate innovative systems design to other ASHRAE members and highlight technological achievements of ASHRAE to others around the world. Winning projects are selected from entries earning regional awards.

Following are summaries of the winning projects.

Research Support Facility, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) C-K Joseph Tai, P.E., Stantec Consulting, Inc., San Francisco, Calif., receives first place in the new commercial buildings category for the Research Support Facility, NREL, Golden, Colo. The building is owned by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Tai and his team also receive the Award of Engineering Excellence for the project.

The Research Support Facility (RSF) is a new 219,105 ft² office building on NREL’s campus in Golden, Colo. It includes everything from open and private offices to a fitness center and library. The criteria for designing the building included an absolute energy use intensity (EUI) goal of 35kBtu/sf/year, net-zero energy and the ability to use the building as a living lab to demonstration energy efficiencies strategies.

The key to the RSF’s success are its integrated systems. Lighting in the building is an integrated system of architectural and interior design details, daylight control systems, occupancy controls and high efficiency lighting. Ninety-two percent of all typical work spaces are designed to receive adequate daylight using a narrow floor plate and advanced light bouncing device.  Thermal comfort is addressed using an integrated system of thermal mass, radiant slabs, night purging and natural ventilation. The total annual energy consumption of the building is 36 percent better than a baseline ASHRAE 90.1-2004 building; the measured EUI is 33kBtu/sf/year, while on-site photovoltaic system is sized at 35kBtu/sf/year.

The RSF offsets the vast majority of its energy footprint by using electrical energy produced by solar panels. The new data center is one of the most efficient in the world due to free cooling and IT efficiency measurements.  It consumes 81 percent less energy than its predecessor, and thus reduces carbon emission by nearly five million pounds per year. In fact, the building is carbon neutral.

Rice Fergus Miller Office and Studio
Shawn Oram, Ecotope, Inc. Seattle, Wash. receives first place in the existing commercial buildings category for Rice Fergus Miller Office and Studio, Bremerton, Wash. The building is owned by Fifth Street Hilltop Partners, LLC.

The Rice Fergus Miller (RFM) Office and Studio is helping to revitalize historic downtown Bremerton, Wash., by turning an abandoned warehouse into a state of the art office building. After one year, the project has an EUI of 21.8 kBtu/sf/year, 76 percent better than the national average for office buildings, which is 93 kBtu/sf/yr. Notably, the building performance is coming within 10 percent of the modeled performance without calibration.

The RFM Office and Studio relies on occupants to play an active role in the operation and tuning of the building using an innovative “passive/active” hybrid mechanical system. The HVAC systems are designed to turn off when the outdoor temperatures are within the “passive mode” range. Red and green lights are used to signal the building mode to the occupants; green indicates passive mode when operable windows can be used for ventilation and cooling.

A high efficiency variable refrigerant volume/flow heat pump (VRV/F) system provides space heating and cooling for 23 independent zones. The VRV/F system is switched from heating to cooling on either side of the passive operation mode; however, the super-insulated naturally ventilated building allows the heat pumps to be off for 70 percent of the year. Ventilation is provided by two energy recovery ventilators (ERV) controlled in stages based on CO2 levels. A large de-stratification fan is positioned over a central opening between the upper and lower floors. The fan mixes the space, acting as a replacement for a traditional ducted distribution system and at higher speeds provides cooling. Waste heat from the server room is recovered and used to heat the building.

The project makes use of the plentiful rainfall for irrigation and toilet flushing from a 6,000 gallon rainwater storage, filtration and pumping system in the garage. The design offsets over 60,000 gallons of potable water use annually.

Portland State University Academic and Student Recreation Center (PSU ASRC) Mark Koller, P.E., Interface Engineering, Portland, Ore, receives first place in the new educational facilities category for the design of the Portland State University Academic and Student Recreation Center, Ore. The building is owned by the University.

This new building on PSU’s downtown campus is home to the School of Social Work, the Oregon University System Chancellor’s Office, the recreation center—including a gymnasium and natatorium—bike hub and the City of Portland Archives.

The natatorium is served by a dedicated indoor dehumidification unit, which has air-to-air plate heat recovery, variable speed fans with dew-point control and heat recovery. The building’s gym, which consists of three courts and an elevated running track, is served by a dedicated air handler with a well water cooling coil, heating coil, variable speed fan and economizer with stack relief. The exercise equipment contains small generators which feed electricity to the building. This is used to teach building occupants how much effort is involved in generating a single kilowatt.

Radiant loss through the high percentage glazing in the lobby of the building is offset by the use of hydronic floor heating, as well as hydronic perimeter convectors. Fan-powered terminal units were utilized in most exterior zones in order to help offset envelope losses. Also, the street level retail spaces are served by a water source heat pump system that uses water from the on-site well. In the cooling season the building rejects heat to this water which is then pumped back to the ground via an injection well. In the heating season those spaces that need heat will be able to extract heat from this 56 F water.

Eastside Fire and Rescue Station 72
Jonathan Heller, P.E., Ecotope, Inc., Seattle, Wash., receives first place in the new other institutional facilities category for the design of the Eastside Fire and Rescue Station 72, Issaquah, Wash. The building is owned by the City of Issaquah.

The new fire station includes offices, living quarters, three truck bays and support spaces. The building uses 70 percent less energy and 50 percent less water compared to other typical fire stations in the region. The building was able to achieve these reductions through the use of super-insulation, heat recovery ventilation, radiant heat distribution, ground source heat pumps, solar water preheat, high efficiency appliances, advanced lighting designs and controls, and real-time energy use feedback to the occupants.

The station is held at relatively constant temperature with radiant heating and cooling in the slab. However, due to the stressful and physically demanding work required of the firefighters, the sleeping rooms are equipped with 4-pipe fan coils with individual temperature control in each private room. This allows firefighters access to cooling on demand when needed to relax after an emergency call. Also, since firefighters often have to leave the station quickly, there is not time to turn off equipment and lights. Therefore, every room has occupancy sensors for shutting off lights and unnecessary equipment. The plug receptacles that are switched from the occupancy sensors are color coded so that all non-critical equipment can be turned off with occupancy.

One innovative aspect of the fire station is the interconnection between the solar thermal and ground source heat pump systems. A large solar thermal array was included due to the high level of hot water use in the fire station. If the solar preheat water tanks are satisfied, the excess heat collected by the solar thermal system is discharged to the geothermal loop field to recharge the ground temperature.

Swedish Issaquah Hospital
Jeremy McClanathan, ASHRAE-Certified Building Energy Modeling and Healthcare Facility Design Professional, CDi Engineers, Lynnwood, Wash., receives first place in the new health care facilities category for the Swedish Issaquah Hospital, Issaquah, Wash. The owner is Swedish Health System.

The new hospital includes an emergency department, operating rooms, imaging, cardiology and in-patient rooms. Through innovative design, the building was able to achieve a 54 percent energy savings compared to a baseline EUI 250 kBtu/sf/year for a typical hospital. Efficiency measures include a central plant heat recovery system (HRS); the use of variable air volume (VAV) air systems; recirculating air handling units (AHU) with select units 100 percent outside air capable for pandemic mode; low velocity ductwork, high efficiency AHUs and chillers; and efficient envelope and lighting.

The most innovative efficiency measure employed in the project was the central plant HRS that is estimated to provide approximately 80 percent of the building’s heating and domestic hot water with energy recovered from internal loads. It utilizes a centralized heat pump, advanced controls, heat recovery coils and a series of heat exchangers to move heat from the chilled water system to the hot water systems. In order to maintain the required pressure relationships mandated in hospitals for infection control, the building utilizes return and exhaust air tracking terminal units and venture valves in its ventilation system. This allows central AHUs to vary supply airflow rates based on demand.

Carbon emissions for the building are 47 percent lower than a baseline building, reducing 6,513 tons of carbon emissions each year. Additionally, the plumbing fixtures, selected to provide both water and energy savings, save 30 percent and 50 percent of the water used by standard fixtures.

Montréal Biodôme
André-Benoit Allard, Eng., Ecosystem, Québec City, Québec, Canada, receives first place in the existing public assembly category for the Montréal Biodôme, Quebec, Canada. The building is owned by Montréal Space for Life.

The Montréal Biodôme, a Space for Life, is filled with flora and fauna from five different replicated ecosystems from the Americas that are under one roof but vary greatly in terms of temperature, humidity and light requirements. An energy saving retrofit was performed on the building from 2008 to 2010. Overall, the building has experienced 55 percent energy savings since the retrofit and an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Central to the retrofit is an energy recovery and energy transfer system between the various ecosystems that is used to cool and heat other parts of the building The heat recovery system includes four heat pumps with a total rated capacity of 1,450 tons. This design allows completely secure operation, even if one of the heat pumps suffers a technical problem. The chillers—or heat pumps—of the new power plant run on R-134a. The plant has three 450-ton heat pumps used for cooling and a fourth 250-ton heat pump is dedicated to the sub-polar region of the building where colder water/glycol solution is needed. This configuration allows the three heat pumps to work in a better efficiency range.

Additionally, 42 fan and pump motors have been replaced by high efficiency motors. A number of motors were resized depending on the load they carried. They are powered by variable frequency drives and fan speed is adjusted according to each ecosystem’s unique schedule and temperature setpoint. The fresh air supply in certain sectors, such as the tropical rainforest, is controlled by CO2 sensors.

The Biodôme employs one of the biggest open-loop ground-source heat pump systems in Canada, with water drawn from the underground water some 30 meters below the building at a rate of 720,000 gallons/day. Depending on the time of year, the system meets heating and cooling needs that the heat recovery system cannot meet alone. During the summer, it is thus possible to transfer the heat from the heat pumps to the underground water and store the heat for the heating season.

ASHRAE, founded in 1894, is a building technology society with more than 50,000 members worldwide. The Society and its members focus on building systems, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, refrigeration and sustainability within the industry. Through research, standards writing, publishing and continuing education, ASHRAE shapes tomorrow’s built environment today.

Next Tacoma LEED Users Group Meeting

Next TOLUG meeting: November 6^th from 12:00-1:30.

Please join us for the November Tacoma/Olympia LEED Users Group (TOLUG) meeting at McGranahan Architects 2111 Pacific Avenue #100, Tacoma, WA 98402.  Our presenter this month is Bill Smith from the City of Tacoma Solid Waste Management.  His presentation will be on Climate Change and Materials Management.

Bill will begin with an update on how the City of Tacoma utilities compare to the rest of the country.  Bill will then shift gears and discuss how managing materials can effect climate change.

Attendees will learn why Tacoma’s utilities are so green and how this can be leveraged into an economic development tool for the City and businesses located in the City.  Attendees will also learn about the work of the West Coast Climate Forum, a consortium of state and local governments organized and led by EPA Regions 9 and 10.  The work of the forum is groundbreaking and involves sustainable consumption and research on the relationship between materials and climate change and the actions that governments and the private sector can take to reduce the environmental, social and economic impacts of what we do.

2030 District Presentation

SEDR is hosting a presentation on Seattle's pioneering 2030 District by Brian Geller, Founder and Executive Director.
Monday, November 5, 2012 from Noon to 1pm
4th Floor Conference Room in City Centre, 1420 5th Ave, Downtown Seattle.
FREE, as always.

The Seattle 2030 District is an interdisciplinary public-private collaborative working to create a groundbreaking high-performance building district in downtown Seattle. With the Architecture 2030 Challenge for Planning providing our performance goals, we seek to develop realistic, measurable, and innovative strategies to assist district property owners, managers, and tenants in meeting aggressive goals that reduce environmental impacts of facility construction and operations. 
Brian Geller, Founder and Executive Director of the group, will be talking about its formation, goals, benefits, and general aspirations, and including some case studies of buildings within the District. He will also give an update on other cities copying this model nationwide – Cleveland and Pittsburgh have both launched 2030 Districts this year, with more to come shortly.
Achieving the 2030 Challenge targets at a district scale, and focusing on existing medium to large buildings that are privately owned, will provide a working model that other cities and regions can use to reduce emissions and impacts. While individual buildings will have specific opportunities for energy reductions, a district approach will provide the opportunity for district-wide heat recovery, distributed generation, and other district energy efficiencies that can reduce the demand for resources. The 2030 District will provide members a roadmap to own, manage, and develop high performance buildings by leveraging existing market resources and by creating new tools and partnerships to overcome current market barriers. This type of collaborative action is a strategic undertaking to help the City of Seattle meet its goal of carbon neutrality by 2030 and represents a major investment in Seattle's future.

SEDR is the Seattle Energy & Design Roundtable, which hosts speakers and work sessions each month. Our goals are to drive building simulation understanding forward toward the goals of the 2030 Challenge. We invite all architects, designers, and engineers to our free presentations to share ideas and experiences with sustainable design.

New Job Posting:

Hermanson Company LLP

tel        206-575-9700

fax       206-575-9800

1221 2nd Avenue North         

Kent, WA  98032

Job Title:          Energy Engineer

Department:     Sustainable Services

Reports To:       Sustainability Manager

FLSA Status:     Exempt

SUMMARY

As Energy Engineer, your primary responsibility will be the identification and technical analysis of various energy savings opportunities for both private and public clients.  You will perform energy audits, determine improvement areas, perform measurements, provide documentation of the recommended energy conservation measures and verification of savings.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following. Other duties may be assigned.

Act as the engineering lead on energy and retrofit development projects from concept through design, permitting, and construction

Analysis of existing systems, focusing on optimization and energy efficiency, equipment replacement, system selection, and/or operation. 

Develop energy and operational savings, paybacks, life cycle analyses for various clients in healthcare, K-12, higher education, private buildings and industrial markets.

Complete ECM energy Calculations and savings projections, coordinate same with utility companies for savings plan.

Ability to grasp the current codes and functional implications of modifications to existing systems and communicate them to the energy team in a positive and helpful manner. 

Provide technical expertise related to Energy Services systems and designs.

Coordinate facility site visits and inform appropriate personnel of project activities.

Communicate and work with local utility company representatives to collect client use data, secure rebates and incentive grants

Development and prepare proposals for future Energy Services work.

Manage, train and promote company beginning level energy engineers, energy auditors, M&V technicians.

DESIRABLE EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

Bachelor's degree (B. A.) in Mechanical Engineering from a four-year college or university or three to five years of direct hands-on field experience in Mechanical Engineering and construction (HVAC, Piping, and Plumbing) or Energy Engineering; or equivalent combination of technical training and/or related experience. 

Have a reasonable background and knowledge of DDC controls and building management systems (BMS) including points lists, sequences of operation, set points, warm-ups and night set-backs and the physical components that perform those functions.

Hold and maintain an AEE CEM certificate.

New Job Posting:

Plumbing Designer - Our established Mechanical Engineering firm, HV Engineering, is looking for a motivated plumbing designer with AutoCAD experience.   The successful applicant should be able to show some familiarity with plumbing design for various sizes of mixed use projects. 

Qualified candidates for this position need to have 2 years minimum of AutoCAD 2008+ experience working in the building design industry.  Experience with REVIT MEP and HVAC system design is also a plus.

The applicant also must have basic computer skills in word processing and with Excel spreadsheets.   The applicant must also be a fast learner, be intuitive, have good communication skills, and be detail oriented.

We offer a smaller, family like, work environment where everyone plays an important part in the success of our firm.  We strongly believe in encouraging and providing an environment where everyone has the chance to grow professionally and their contributions are noted and financially rewarded.  We offer competitive wages, matching 401P and benefits including medical/dental, and an easily accessible location one block from Green Lake without the downtown commute.

If you have these skills/experience and are looking for a company where you can make an impact, please provide a resume showing your experience addressed to:  tom@hvengineering.biz.

FREE HYDRONIC BALANCING SEMINAR: 
September 19, 2012


Investment and Energy Saving Opportunities in Variable Flow Systems
Join seminar instructor Bjarne Andreasen as he draws on over 25 years of hydronic experience to discuss variable flow techniques that can provide energy savings and/or reduce installation costs. Seminar discussions include: 

Main Areas of Energy Use
Review of components, efficiencies and operating requirements of equipment like chillers and boilers.

Terminal Units
Specifics of variable flow in terminal units, as well as room temperature control,
will be reviewed. Focus areas will be global control characteristic curves and
factors allowing stable and accurate control.

Variable Speed Pumps (VSPs)
Solutions involving different control modes, Dp sensor locations, and multiple
sensors will be compared and analyzed for their impact on system controllability.
We will examine the optimum use of Dp control.
Primary-Secondary vs. Variable Primary Flow
We will discuss some critical issues like hydronic interactivity between chillers
and sizing of bypass line and control valves.

Benefits of Attending:

• Technical presentations and professional networking
• Q&A session with experienced instructors
• Drawing to win two FREE game tickets!
• Refreshments and dinner• Attendees receive certificate of attendance, and the book
“Total Hydronic Balancing” by Robert Petitjean — a $100 value

Register here: http://www.victaulicbalancingseminars.com/registration/