Award

Engineering Services Office and Lab Facility by Godfrey Budd T Engineering Services Office and Lab Facility p100-101BioEnergy_EngServ.indd 101 east entrance to a staff amenity courtyard located on the west side and a primary southside-located staff entrance, says Swart. The series of labs, testing and processing rooms in the building���s south wing were laid out according to the cleanliness hierarchy principle, so that ones producing a lot of noise, vibration or dust were further away from the offices, and at the very south end of the building. ���As you go from the south to the north part of the building, you go from the sample area, laboratories, to clean offices for the people who work in the labs. Offices are part of the ���clean��� areas. We organized the entrance and public space areas to help visitors easily orient themselves,��� says Swart. The sample, testing and processing areas include very large, heavy pieces of equipment, some of which weigh a couple of tonnes or more. One room in the south part of the building is called the ���shaker room.��� Some processes entail a lot of moisture, while others result in clouds of dust. Some rooms, which have double walls of cinder block, walls within walls, in effect, are used for curing concrete samples. Curing rooms have vapour barriers even though they are entirely interior. The outside of the inner wall has an epoxy coating. There is a space of about one inch between the inner and outer walls. The design applies connection between the two massing components as well as separation. The main entrance opens onto a reception area and a spacious hallway lined with offices and a library on the right and labs on the left. Clerestory windows on the right and a big window at the far end provide day-lighting for labs and offices. Fresh air ventilation is supplied via two air-handling systems ��� one dedicated outside air system with heat recovery for the office block, and another with glycol heat recovery for the labs and processing areas. The glycol heat recovery loop transfers the heat exhausted from the ovens and fume hoods to the incoming outdoor air during the winter. A desiccant drying system is used and the drying room has its own HVAC system, says Grant Kidd, principal and mechanical discipline leader at Dialog. ���All the labs are exhausting air to the outside but there is a heat recovery system for the labs. photos courtesy city of edmonton he City of Edmonton���s Engineering Services Building is a single-storey, purpose-built structure, plus a parking area, occupying five acres within an eight-acre parcel in a light industrial neighbourhood in the provincial capital���s northwest. It provides workspace for the city���s engineering services section, which began more than 60 years ago with four employees, and now has about 120 staffers, mostly engineers, scientists and technicians. Some of the special features of the building stem from its role in providing various specialized engineering and technical services to all City of Edmonton departments and other local governments, on occasion. They fall into four main categories. ���Engineering Services does geo-technical work on all sorts of City of Edmonton projects,��� says Don Lewycky, director of engineering services for the city. The work includes erosion control, geo-technical investigations, and technical reviews. In addition, the section provides environmental investigation and review, proof-of-concept research, as well as noise and vibration monitoring. Its third main activity involves a quality assurance group, which tests soils, concrete and asphalt products. ���There are lots of labs for that,��� says Lewycky, who adds these services also include administration, construction quality assurance and control, and specialized materials research for roadway projects. Engineering Services also has a group of surveyors that provides services for a wide variety of city projects. With loading bays that can handle up to six vehicles and some labs equipped with various types of materials testing equipment, the Engineering Services Building is divided into two main areas. ���The design and layout of the building incorporates a hierarchy of cleanliness,��� says Rob Swart, an architect and principal at Dialog. At the clean end of the spectrum are offices for administration and professional staff as well as rooms for teaching and seminars. Laboratories, rooms for testing, analysis and processing are at the other end of the spectrum. Both massing components ��� the administrative wing, and the lab and testing area ��� align along a central ���main-street��� axis extending from the One room is kept at 100 per cent humidity with spray heads in the ceiling to keep it moist. Humidity and temperature sensors send data to a central control system. This controls the amount of mist and its temperature,��� he says. The new Engineering Services Building is targeting LEED Silver and its heating and cooling systems are separated from the air handling system to allow the air handling function to be shut down during unoccupied hours while maintaining the building���s required minimum temperature. Based on a whole building energy simulation, it is expected that a 40 per cent energy cost savings should be realized, compared to a standard ASHRAE-compliant building. A total energy wheel, or enthalpy wheel, recovers an estimated 70 per cent of heat and moisture, says Kidd. Despite its purpose-built, utilitarian aspect, the Engineering Services Building is not without an esthetic dimension, and its cladding palette is more complex and varied near the public areas. But this, in turn, placed demands on scheduling and sequencing. ���When the tie-ins were made with the concrete, zinc, brick and glass near the front entrance, as expected, the various sub-trades, roofing, siding, glazing, masonry ��� they all had to be coordinated like clockwork,��� says Brian Costin, project manager with Chandos Construction Ltd. (Edmonton). A series of ponds and bridges along the main hallway also add to the esthetics of the building. ��� LOCATION 11004 140 Street Edmonton, Alberta OWNER/DEVELOPER City of Edmonton ARCHITECT/STRUCTURAL/ MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL CONSULTANT Dialog GENERAL CONTRACTOR Chandos Construction Ltd. TOTAL AREA 44,000 square feet TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST $16.5 million february 2013��� ��� /101 13-01-22 4:07 PM

• Cover