"Rather than creating a fortress, the solution projects a highly integrated image of landscape and building in which security restrictions play no visible role."

The mission and the environment

August 2010 — While U.S. federal facilities often present demanding mission and security requirements, agencies recognize the importance of embracing sustainable building practices and of evoking their mission and legacy through design. AECOM architects, engineers and program managers work with federal clients to balance these objectives in the design and delivery of facilities that fulfill a range of functional requirements and express the aesthetic aspirations of their occupant agencies, while remaining sensitive to local and global environmental contexts.

The U.S. Green Building Council Federal Summit, held in Washington, D.C., in May 2010, was well attended by key leaders from the federal government responsible for building design services procurement. Representative agencies included the General Services Administration, the Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and the Office of Management and Budget. After this two-day summit, Anthony Bernheim, FAIA, LEED AP BC+C, AECOM sustainability principal for architecture, noted a consistent theme to the federal leaders' presentations: "Based on the president's executive order, federal agencies are mandated to reduce and report their energy, water and greenhouse gas reductions. They developed the 'Zero Environmental Goal' (ZEG) and are seeking innovative designs for high-performance facilities to meet it. Their mantra is 'On budget, on schedule and on green.'"

Green growth

AECOM is providing master planning, architectural design, structural engineering, LEED and commissioning services for the four-story, 170,000-square foot expansion of the Air National Guard (ANG) Readiness Center building at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, U.S.A. Due to the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) proposal and the resulting increase in building population, the scale of the building has more than doubled.

Designed to meet force protection setbacks per UFC 4-010-01 and 4-010-02 DOD Minimum Antiterrorism Standoff Distances for Buildings, the project is pursuing LEED-NC v2.2 certification and has been registered with the U.S. Green Building Council. "An extensive green roof, the first on an ANG facility, will retain a significant portion of rainwater and reduce the thermal impact," said Ginny Dyson, IIDA, LEED AP BD+C, sustainability specialist, AECOM LEED consultant for the project. The ANG design team is pursuing an Innovation in Design credit for exemplary performance in water use reduction, using 40 percent less potable water through the selection of very low-flow urinals, dual-flush toilets, automatic faucets and low-flow showers.

The team is also pursuing an innovation credit using a strategy from another LEED rating system (LEED for Commercial Interiors Indoor Environmental Quality Credit 4.5, Low-Emitting Materials, Systems Furniture and Seating). All moveable walls, systems furniture and task seating have been selected with GREENGUARD® product certification for low emitting interior building furnishings and finish systems.

ANG is using the Readiness Center expansion as a demonstration project, re-addressing Engineering Technical Letters, embracing current technologies and best practices and showing the flexibility to adapt individual facilities to their climates. This reevaluation, a pioneering effort by ANG, embraces new developmental criteria for facilities construction, improving delivery of sustainable building types. With ANG's presence in all 50 states and large building and land use footprint, adopting sustainable practices and policies will lead to increased return on investment dollars, improved environmental impacts and lower operations and maintenance costs.

Responding to site

The new Army National Guard Bureau Readiness Center in Arlington, Virginia, U.S.A., presented the challenge of accommodating 250,000 square feet of program space on a mature suburban campus with very little open space for new buildings. The project team also had to address highly restrictive force protection setback requirements while creating a design solution worthy of the National Guard's 21st century mission and legacy.

The design solution is defined by a triangular tower rising from a vegetated subterranean podium. The shape of the building evokes the tri-cornered hat worn by the militiamen of the American Revolution to whom the Guard traces its origin. Nearly 150,000 square feet of highly secure spaces are contained in three below-grade plaza levels, with 100,000 square feet rising above in a five-story tower. The tower, which appears to rise directly out of the landscape, occupies the plan footprint beyond the force protection setback requirements and therefore can be largely glazed.

Wade Joffrion, vice president at AECOM, explains that "Rather than creating a fortress, the solution projects a highly integrated image of landscape and building in which security restrictions play no visible role."

Placing the command center and related secure spaces below grade projecting into the force protection setbacks provides long-span, highly flexible space for the many special mission requirements that do not require daylighting. Integrating these spaces with the landscape preserves the park-like outdoor spaces for the users. The design team took great care to create strong links from within the tower to the landscape, as well as from the below-grade spaces to the site topography. With a 24/7 mission, visual connection to the outdoors offers special benefits.

The facility was designed in the Building Information Modeling software Revit 2008 for all architecture, interior design and structural engineering and is designed to achieve LEED-NC v2.2 Silver certification. Sustainable features include energy monitoring and control systems; high-efficiency motors, lighting and HVAC systems; high-efficiency water-cooled water chillers; high-efficiency hot water boilers and energy recovery air handling units.

Healing our heroes

To provide the U.S. Army with a new replacement facility for the existing Martin Army Community Hospital at Fort Benning, Georgia, Ellerbe Becket, an AECOM Company, worked as part of a design joint venture team with RLF on a design/build opportunity led by Turner Construction. This design/build team focused on basic core concepts of the Army tradition and excellent healthcare delivery. These core concepts established a nucleus for a design process resulting in a facility that reflects Army pride and strength, integrates the hospital with the site and the Georgia landscape, focuses on community and patient care, incorporates evidence based design (solutions that have been proven to improve patient outcomes by reducing stress, lowering the infection rate, reducing clinical errors, dropping the length of stay and increasing the overall functioning within a hospital and clinical environment), promotes operational efficiency, utilizes sustainable design elements (the building is targeted for LEED-NC v2.2 Silver certification) and allows for growth and change over its life as a flexible facility.

All of these concepts have come together in a new Martin Army Community Hospital that will not only deliver high-quality care for U.S. soldiers and their families, but will serve as a model facility for the U.S. Army and the healthcare industry.

Going for gold

AECOM designed a five-building barracks complex under a fast-track design-build contract to house 1,840 soldiers for the 1st Brigade Combat Team-Heavy, 4th Infantry Division, at Fort Carson, Colorado. These buildings are the first four-story, wood-framed, modular barracks in the United States. AECOM structural engineers worked closely with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Protection Design Center to apply and implement all progressive collapse standards for the barracks.

The complex is LEED-NC v2.2 Gold certified. Sustainable design features include increased outdoor air ventilation rates; erosion and sedimentation control measures; a stormwater management plan that results in no net increase in peak runoff; high-efficiency, low-temperature condensing boilers and water heaters; air-to-air energy recovery units; water use reduction by incorporating low-flow showers and kitchen sinks; alternative transportation credits earned with bicycle storage; use of local and recycled materials; reduction in heat island effect resulting from roof material properties and low VOC emitting materials for carpets, paints and sealants.

Jake Herson