ASHRAE Journal - August 2024 - 58

2024 ASHRAE TECHNOLOGY AWARDS CASE STUDY
2
ND
are set to maintain a maximum of 800 ppm of
CO2 in occupied spaces.
CO
Increasing ventilation air resulted in increased
energy consumption, but the benefi ts of reducing room
CO2 levels-namely, the positive impacts on the indoor
environment and improved cognitive learning-were
prioritized. While the building design was completed
before COVID-19, this additional ventilation, along
with an upgrade from MERV 13 to MERV 14 fi ltration
throughout, helped to reduce the spread of airborne
particles and allowed the building to open to students
during the pandemic. Enhanced air quality testing
was performed to confi rm that the building met
the airborne particulate matter thresholds of PM2.5
<12 µg/m3 and PM10 <30 µg/m3, and the thresholds for
reducing organic and inorganic gases outlined in the
appropriate WELL Building optimization requirements.
Temperature and humidity control were designed for
and tested per ASHRAE Standard 55-2013. The outdoor
air conditions implemented in the design were 95°F
(35°C) dry-bulb for cooling and 0°F (-18°C) dry-bulb
for heating, which exceeded the ASHRAE 0.4% cooling
and 99.6% heating design temperatures. Additionally,
each space was provided with a thermostat for space
temperature control with a range of 68°F to 74°F (20°C
to 23°C). With multiple space types in the building (e.g.,
classrooms, offi ces, kitchen, gymnasium, etc.), the
selected metabolic rate (met) values varied by space.
A clo value of 0.36 was chosen for the cooling season,
while a clo value of 0.96 was selected for heating. The
met values set for the various space types were 1.2 for
classrooms and offi ces, 1.8 for kitchen areas and 3.0 for
the gymnasium.
INNOVATION
Designed to serve an underprivileged area, this project
aimed to create a facility to help positively transform the
surrounding community. The project team also wanted
to design a facility where the building could be used as a
teaching tool. The result was an interactive, curriculumintegrated
building dashboard for both students and
teachers.
Far from a typical energy dashboard, this interface
incorporates all of the project's sustainability aspects,
highlighting the environmental impact of both the
building systems and showing ways students can
help. By teaching students how to be environmentally
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conscious, the dashboard cultivates environmental
awareness and builds sustainable practices into their
lives at a young age.
The dashboard contains 360° images of multiple areas
of the building, showing what each space looked like
during construction compared to the fi nal product.
This feature allows students to see where, for example,
a geothermal well was drilled directly below the
playground. The system is accessible from any computer
to be used by students while also being a valuable
addition to teachers' curriculum.
Given the project's health and wellness goals,
particular importance was given to the ventilation
system. In addition to setting aggressive CO2
level setpoints in occupied spaces and providing
30% additional ventilation air quantities, system
redundancy was also provided. The DOAS unit has
N + 1 fan redundancy on bo th the supply and exhaust
fan sections. The heating and cooling system is served
by redundant water-source heat pumps, each with
multiple com pressor circuits for extra resiliency.
An innovative geothermal pumping confi guration
was also implemented. A primary-secondary pumping
system was used to decouple the building loop from the
wellfi eld instead of a single variable-speed pumping
system. In this setup, one set of variable-speed pumps
circulates the primary building heat pump loop. This
eliminates the wellfi eld pressure drop from the primary
building loop. When the building loop temperature
exceeds the defi ned controls sequence range, the
wellfi eld pumps pull water from the building loop
and sends it to the wellfi eld, providing loop heating or
cooling.
MAINTENANCE & OPERATION
During the zero-energy charrettes and the early
design phase, the design team toured multiple facilities
to understand the most common operations and
maintenance issues encountered by maintenance staff.
Given concerns about access to equipment, the watersource
heat pumps were installed in smaller heat pump
closets on equipment stands instead of suspended
above the ceilings. Additionally, building fi ltration
was standardized with 2 ft × 2 ft (0.6 m × 0.6 m) fi lters
installed in duct-mounted fi lter racks for all heat pumps
instead of the varying fi lter sizes provided by equipment
manufacturers. This uniformity allows maintenance
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ASHRAE Journal - August 2024

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