We are pleased to announce that this October, the Navy Operations Support Center (NOSC) at March Air Reserve Base earned LEED Certification, and Building 7000 at Vandenberg Air Force Base earned LEED Gold certification.
An image showing light levels achieved with suntubes located in offices and work-spaces. Red circles indicate suntube locations (size exaggerated for clarity).
Located directly across from an airstrip and requiring high security, NOSC had strict limitations on windows, so our team provided extensive daylight analysis for the use of suntubes. To achieve required light levels with daylight only, the 38,000 SF building would have required 65 suntubes. However, budget restrictions limited the number of suntubes to 34, so we targeted interior work-spaces, circulation for way-finding, and balancing light levels from the limited number of windows. We also recommended interior glazing to extend the reach of daylighting from the suntubes to adjacent spaces. Classrooms and training space, which would have been greatly improved with daylight, were only used occasionally, so were determined to be a lower priority.
Building 7000 at VAFB included retaining the massive steel and concrete structure, reducing time, cost and embodied energy for the new construction.
For Building 7000 at VAFB, one of the most impactful strategies was re-use of the existing building. Although the project consisted of a gut renovation of the interior and a complete re-cladding of the exterior, the owner maintained the massive steel and concrete structure, thus reducing the embodied energy and waste significantly. In addition, through aggressive sorting, 97% of construction waste was diverted from landfill.
Congratulations to the entire team of both projects on their significant achievement of LEED certification!