Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, California Office Building
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In line with its mission to protect Pennsylvania’s air, land and water from pollution and to provide for the health and safety of its citizens through a cleaner environment, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) engaged 7group to provide high performance integrative design and commissioning services, as well as LEED consulting and documentation, for the design and construction of this extremely economical office building located in California, Pennsylvania.
While costing approximately 4% below average office building construction costs, this building incorporates an extensive list of sustainable features: blended cement replaces over 40% of the portland cement content in this project’s concrete, reducing the building’s carbon footprint by more than 90 tons; waterless urinals and low flow fixtures contribute to a 41% water consumption reduction; heating and cooling decisions via integrative design produced a 40% reduction in annual energy consumption costs; the building’s thermal envelope included R-30 insulated concrete form walls and high performance windows that eliminated costly perimeter heating systems. In total, the building’s cooling capacity was reduced by 50% to 632 sf/ton.
Indoor environmental quality was a crucial design consideration as well: extensive daylighting analysis and elements resulted in a daylight factor that exceeds 2.0 at all work stations, with lighting power density averaging less than 0.65 watts/sf (50% lower than the norm), photocell-sensored dimming, occupant sensors, solar shades and light shelves.
The map room serves as the primary and central space around which the building functions. Solar shades and light shelves maximize the use of natural daylight in this critical space and at all workstations throughout the facility.
Utilizing passive solar strategies, this building is oriented along an east-west axis and solar shades over large windows reduce cooling costs in the building.
Clerestory windows provide bi-lateral daylighting that allows abundant natural light into all interior office spaces with an exposed reflective ceiling surface as an integral component of the highly-insulated metal roof decking panels.
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Location
California, PA, USA
Project Owner
MBC Properties, Inc.
Architect
L. Robert Kimball & Associates,
John Boecker, Project Architect
Building Size
21,200 sf
Cost
$2,000,000
Completed
May 2003
LEED® Status
LEED Gold (NCv2.0)
Certified
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