With views of the Columbia River Gorge, the Oregon Military Department’s Fort Dalles Readiness Center was meant to be more than a standard military facility. Conceived as a collaboration between the OMD and the surrounding community, it is designed to be a fully-functional military facility, community center and occupational training facility for careers in renewable energy. It also educational space, including a 10,000-square-foot lecture hall for the college that can also be used as a drill floor for the National Guard.

Some key goals for the facility included highly efficient operation, resiliency in the event of a potential disaster, and to showcase sustainable concepts as a learning tool for students at the nearby Columbia Gorge Community College. For this, Glumac’s energy and MEP engineering experts provided full design and energy modeling. Along with a solar panel array, Glumac designed a ground source heat pump system that uses the Earth beneath the facility as its primary heating and cooling mechanism, reducing its reliance on outside sources of power and increasing its overall energy efficiency. These systems allow for long-term cost-saving by reducing the level of necessary equipment upkeep and wasted outputs, and provides enough energy independence to ensure it can maintain operations if outside power sources were cut off – a crucial component to the center’s ability to provide relief services when they are needed most.

Size: 62,000 square feet
Cost: $25,000,000
Completion Date: 2014
Architect: TVA Architects
Contractor: Hoffman Construction
Owner: Oregon Military Department
Services: MEP Engineering, Energy Analysis

Images courtesy of Jamz photography