ASHRAE moves in
6th November 2020
USA: ASHRAE has completed the move to its new global headquarters at Peachtree Corners, Georgia.
The society’s employees officially moved into the new 66,700ft2 (6,200m2) building at the beginning of October.
The Society began renovations in January of this year to the existing building, originally built in 1978, on 11 acres of land. It is located 10 miles north of its previous headquarters building.
“ASHRAE’s new global headquarters is a prime example of how we are helping to pioneer a movement that many expect will ultimately make net-zero energy the ‘new norm’ in sustainable design and construction,” said ASHRAE Building Ad Hoc Committee chair Ginger Scoggins.
“Although new construction of net-zero energy buildings make a lot of headlines, reuse of existing structures is a basic tenet of sustainability – the energy performance of existing buildings must be addressed to substantially impact the 40% of primary energy consumed by buildings.”
“ASHRAE’s goal for this project was to renovate a three-story 1970’s era, cheap energy period building into a high-performing net-zero-ready facility in a cost-effective way that can be replicated in the built environment industry,” said Technical Advisory Subcommittee chair Tim McGinn.
A campaign to garner support for the renovation project attracted support from 31 companies that committed more than $9.7m in financial support and gifts of equipment and services. ASHRAE made special mention of NIBE, Cisco, Arkema, Daikin, Price Industries, Belimo, ClimateMaster, ClimaCool, Bell & Gossett, Big Ass Fans, Victaulic, Uponor, Mitsubishi Electric Trane, NTT and PlaceOS.
Additionally, ASHRAE members have contributed over $500,000.
Net zero
ASHRAE maintains that the roof-top and ground mounted photovoltaic solar energy system design, currently in progress, will make the new building fully net-zero energy by March 2021.
The building has a number of other interesting features including:
- A radiant ceiling panel system for heating and cooling and a dedicated outdoor air system for outdoor air ventilation with enthalpy heat recovery.
- An overhead fresh air distribution system augmented with reversible ceiling fans in the open office areas and displacement distribution in the learning centre.
- Four water source-heat pumps on the basement level and two on the upper level atrium that will be used to condition these spaces.
- Demand control ventilation for high occupancy spaces in the meeting and learning centre. Air distribution is constant volume in office areas and provided by fabric duct.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, ASHRAE had already planned to provide 30% more outside air to the building than the required minimum ventilation rates from ASHRAE Standard 62.1.
“ASHRAE’s new global headquarters is an example of an effective built environment that fully considers the importance of effective operations by installing the systems and equipment in a manner that facilitates operation and maintenance,” said 2019-20 ASHRAE presidential member and Building Ad Hoc Committee member Darryl K Boyce. “We are grateful to our donors for their generous support and partnership. It is this support that not only shows our donors’ alignment with ASHRAE’s sustainability goals, but helps us to address the challenges of designing and operate buildings in a technology driven environment.”
