Category: Commercial

YOUNG LIVING GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS

Van Boerum & Frank Associates (VBFA) served as the mechanical consultant providing HVAC, plumbing and fire protection design for the Young Living Global Headquarters. VBFA teamed up with Scholz Architects, BNA, the electrical consultant and the structural consultant, Dunn Associates. The intricate architectural design with its curved walls and spaces along with the sheer size of the building provided the design team with an assortment of complex challenges to overcome. VBFA designed linear diffusers/grilles to align with the curvature of the spaces. To keep the project economical, single linear slot diffusers were used in lieu of continuous diffusers. The owner opted to use the ever growing in demand, variable-refrigerant-flow (VRF) system as the basis for the HVAC design.

The Young Living Global Headquarters includes office space, full-service kitchen with cafeteria, laboratory, research and development and fitness center. The building also includes a 3-story water fall, reflecting pool with tropical plants and trees and a 4-story grow wall located in the central court. Designing to include these unusual spaces found inside a non-traditional office building presented challenges for the design team.

VBFA’s team designed a VRF system with multiple energy recovery ventilators (ERV). The ERV units provided the required ventilation rates and proper pressurization of the building while the VRF system conditioned it. This technique which is widely used in the industry was used in the majority of the building.

VERNAL BREWERY

VBFA provided the mechanical engineering services for this 9,000 square-foot restaurant and brewery. In order to maximize thermal resistance, two inches of continuous rigid insulation below cladding. Clerestory windows on the perimeter of the building provide natural light to restaurant patrons.

CHASE BANK (MULTIPLE LOCATIONS)

Chase Bank, a leader in the financial solutions market, is rapidly expanding in the Arizona and California markets. We have provided mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering services for many of their new facilities and remodels of existing facilities in the Arizona and California markets.

TARGET FINANCIAL OFFICE COMPLEX

The Target Financial projects include Building B Cooling Tower Replacement, LED Parking Garage Lighting, IT Room Metering Buildings A & B, Interior Remodel – Buildings A & B, EPO Switch – Buildings A & B, Building A Cooling Tower Replacement and Energy Analysis. We served as the Engineer of Record for these projects. The Cooling Tower projects are the only design projects to have been reviewed by the City of Tempe and have received their permits without comments from the plan review staff.

Many of the associated projects required systems remain operational during all phases of construction. The Cooling Tower Replacement needed to have 3 methods of redundancy at all times. In order to accomplish this task the original tower was kept in place and operational until the new one was installed. A temporary chiller was kept on-site in case of power failure along with multiple electrical feeds, a temporary backup generator and UPS power.

WCF OFFICE BUILDING

The Workers Compensation Building (WCF) is no ordinary space, it’s owners set out to build a structure which both satisfies the needs of short term cost, long term energy and maintenance costs, as well as provides optimum comfort for building occupants and the 198,000 square foot, six story, Workers Compensation Office building achieves just that.

VBFA participated as part of the team effort in designing and constructing the very best system which would integrate together for optimum performance and price. Given the unique and innovative approach, the WCF building presented design challenges and a fresh perspective to the office building world.

WCF has internal stair and atrium that connects three floors of their building. In the old facility, workers almost never connected unless required for business via an arranged meeting. With the Gathering Area for food preparation and dining and the internal stair, people meet, greet and work informally with better communication and less need for meetings. This is an important culture change that they wanted the building to bring about. Radiant panels wash the windows with gentle heat in the winter, and the shade from the panels reduces the heat from the sunlight in the summer.

Many key mechanical innovation elements were used when designing the building from the three stage cooling system pioneered years ago by VBFA, which involves a complex set of considerations and calculations to properly size to the placement of boilers and chillers in order to provide a noise and vibration free working environment.

This state of the art building includes at its core 95% efficient sealed combustion modulating gas condensing boilers, a variable speed drive water cooled chiller plant, a three-stage fan array central air handling system and VAV reheat terminals.

The owner’s charge from the project was to build a comfortable, energy efficient, and long lasting building with mechanical systems which balance both long and short term goals. These goals were readily met by VBFA and the building achieved a coveted LEED gold rating. This building is a testament to the good sense of installing mechanical systems which consider and properly balance first cost, long term efficiency and maintainability.