ASHRAE Journal - March 2021 - 21

ASHRAE AWARD OF ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE

system that provides information
on how the MEP systems are operating. The building automation system installed at the Knight Cancer
Research Building includes energy
and water meters on major equipment and systems as well as programing that sums overall energy
use of the entire mechanical plant
(Photo 2). Real-time and historical
data on the performance of chillers, boilers, pumps and fans are
gathered and stored by the building
automation system.
This information is very useful to
the savvy building operator who can
make setpoint or operational adjustments and see the results of those
actions immediately. Buildings can
be very dynamic in operation, and as
much as we try to accurately model
how they will operate over months
or years, it is the real-time feedback
that can be a valuable tool to the
building operator in maximizing
system efﬁciency.
During the ﬁrst year of operation,
the owner got to put the HVAC systems to the test and reported that
everything is operating smoothly.

Cost-Effectiveness
The project used an integrated
project delivery (IPD) method to
maximize the creativity of the
design, increase design and construction efﬁciency and reduce
overall project costs. With IPD, the
owner, tenant, building operator,
general contractor (GC) and trade
partners (major subcontractors) are
all integral to the design process.
The large IPD team for the Knight
Cancer Research Building co-located
into shared ofﬁce space, which fostered collaboration and teamwork,
and allowed communication to ﬂow

more quickly and freely than a traditional design-bid-build project.
Cost-effectiveness during the
design process was achieved by
having representatives from the
Knight Cancer Institute involved in
discipline-speciﬁc functional team
meetings. The design team was
able to respond to their needs and
requirements immediately during
the design process rather than waiting for milestone review periods,
which reduced the amount of redesign effort required.
One speciﬁc way this helped
reduce project costs was by evaluating the laboratory compressed air
system. The project requirements
initially included a compressed air
system to all lab spaces; however, the
lab managers were able to recognize
the limited need for compressed
air based on the types of research
they were planning. By scaling the
system to local compressors only
where needed, the project was able
to reduce construction costs by over
$100,000 and saved the design team
from having to detail a system that
was not needed.
Several strategies proved successful on the project with respect to
controlling construction costs. The
GC and trade partners were brought
onboard when the project was still
in schematic design and were able to
provide real-time feedback on construction costs and constructability
of proposed systems. This proved to
be very valuable when evaluating
cost reduction options. A value engineering log was maintained to capture both cost saving ideas as well as
risks that had potential to increase
project costs.
To evaluate cost-effectiveness
of proposed energy-efﬁciency

FIGURE 4 Wind direction distribution percentage.

NNW
NW

N
15

NNE
NE

WNW

ENE

WSW

ESE
SE

SW
SSW

SSE

measures, payback analyses of each
measure were performed using
ﬁrst-cost data from the contracting team, operating costs from the
owner and energy impact and cost
from the design team.

Environmental Impact
The environmental impact of the
project was discussed and evaluated throughout the design phase.
Typically when building energy
use is evaluated, it is based on site
energy-the energy used at the
building site. This provides a good
apples-to-apples comparison of
energy use in buildings regardless
of where that energy comes from.
For this project, source energy was
also evaluated. Source energy is the
energy required to generate and
distribute the energy required at the
building.
For natural gas, site and source
energy uses are nearly identical
because the combustion process
occurs at the building site. Electrical
energy, however, is generated
remotely and experiences signiﬁcant losses in efﬁciency through its
generation and distribution before
being used at the building. This
building is expected to generate
36% less carbon than baseline when

MARCH 2021

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ASHRAE Journal - March 2021

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