The US General Services Administration wanted to optimize the 1970’s 18-story Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building. Targeting an energy savings of 30% over ASRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2007 per the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and a 55% reduction in  fossil fuel energy over a Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) baseline, the GSA and design team pursued an integrated design approach.

Glumac’s expanded building commissioning and energy modeling service supported the team in  achieving these goals. In addition, Glumac performed peer reviews (mechanical design) for the GSA and helped convert the mechanical design implementation method from traditional delivery to design build. At the onset of Glumac’s commissioning effort, Glumac performed a fatal flaw analysis of the core and shell design, identifying risks the owner felt hadn’t been addressed previously. This prompted a comfort analysis which led to a redesign of Edith Green’s mechanical system at the building perimeter.

The Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building reused nearly all of the existing structural elements, significantly reducing the embodied carbon compared to a conventional building. In the first full year of operation, the building recorded 39% energy cost reduction and 45% energy use reduction compared to Standard 90.1-2007. In addition to the building performance, the design team credits the integrated design process with cutting reduction in requests for information (RFIs) by more than half (measured against comparable projects by the same architect) and cutting the paper used for architectural contract documents by 92%.

Sustainable Building Features

• All radiant heating and cooling systems
• Large photovoltaic system
• Custom façade for shading 50% of the sunlight on the building’s western face
• A large stormwater reclaim system
• Daylight penetration and energy-efficient electric lighting systems with advanced controls reduce lighting energy by 40% compared to Oregon code.
• Steel shading devices minimize solar heat gain on south, west and east elevations.

Awards

• LEED NC Platinum Certification
• 2014 GSA Design Honor Award
• 2014 Tall Building in America Award
• Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
• 2014 AIA COTE Top Ten Award
• 2013 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice (TAP)/ Building Information Modelling (BIM) Winner

Size: 500,000 sf
Project Cost: $136,000,000
Completion Date: 2013
Architect: SERA Architects
Owner: General Services Administration
Contractor: Howard S. Wright Construction
Services: Commissioning

Images courtesy of Nic Lehoux