DAVIS, Calif.—With a completion date slated for July 2021, construction continues on the Emerson Hall redevelopment project at University of California, Davis.

DPR Construction is the general contractor on this $109 million design-build project that began in mid-2019 with architecture firm HKS, Inc. Included is a new, three-building, ground-up student housing complex with a bed count between 749 to 809 beds.

The bedrooms will have double and triple room arrangements and include bathrooms. The three buildings will also include common rooms, residence assistant apartments, lounges, recreation rooms, an Advising Center, community space, a community kitchen, music room, maintenance shops and laundry facilities.

Features of Emerson Hall include double-occupancy rooms. All rooms are part of a “suite” configuration, which are similar to full apartments, but without a kitchen. The suites are arranged off the corridor and open into a foyer.

Room dimensions are approximately 220 square feet. Two-bedroom (4 occupant) suites have one bathroom; and three-bedroom (6 occupant) suites have 2 bathrooms. Emerson Hall will have two laundry rooms; the smaller laundry room has 6 washing machines and 6 dryers while the larger has 16 washing machines and 16 dryers.

DPR Construction has also partnered with Digital Building Components on this project to deliver non-combustible, light gauge cold-formed, load-bearing structures. The use of DBC has allowed the team to change the buildings from Type V/III wood-framed construction to a Type II steel-framed building. This allows the three buildings to be connected, improving egress and allowing social balconies between the buildings.

This project is required to be LEED Silver certified, but is targeting for LEED Gold.

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GOLETA, Calif. — Tenaya Towers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) was recently honored at the 2018 Sustainable Innovation Awards. The project, a pair of six-story towers, received a Merit Award in the Energy and Atmosphere category. The Sustainable Innovation Awards (SIA) program is hosted by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Los Angeles chapter and recognizes projects that demonstrate exemplary performance that goes above and beyond standard rating systems.

Considered to be Los Angeles’ Oscars of green building, the SIAs affirm a project team’s commitment to a sustainable built environment and reflect the chapter’s emphasis on energy and water savings, air quality, good design, community engagement and equity. The SIAs are open to projects certified under any sustainability rating system.

“The Sustainable Innovation Awards recognize projects that go above and beyond credit achievement,” said SIA Co-chair Patti Harburg-Petrich of BuroHappold. “The project teams honored this year employed creative strategies that we hope will inspire the design and construction community to push the limits of standard practice. Thank you to all who submitted projects for consideration.”

Located on UCSB’s campus in Goleta, Calif. the Tenaya Towers provide space for student housing, study lounges, recreation rooms, and a market that is open to the school community as well as the public.

Tenaya Towers contain student housing and a convenience store that serves the university and adjacent community. Living areas open onto balconies that overlook an outdoor plaza, while bedrooms are situated away from outdoor activity. Study lounges and recreation rooms are centrally located to support academic and social life.

Perforated screens on the building facades provide shading, help keep the buildings cool, and serve as protective barriers. Larger openings in the screens enhance daylighting and views. Additional screens on operable windows in bedrooms and study lounges provide shading and act as guardrails for each unit. A freestanding pavilion in the plaza contains a recreation room and study lounge for students.

The towers define a central outdoor plaza that total 105,000 square feet, Certified LEED Platinum, the towers feature natural ventilation, rooftop solar hot water collectors, and greywater use. Sustainable features in the site plan include a stormwater management system with bioswales, bio-retention and mechanical filters to protect adjacent wetlands, and ground cover with drought-tolerant plants.

Tenaya Towers also features natural ventilation, rooftop solar hot water collectors, and greywater use. The building envelopes are carefully designed to maximize thermal performance, contributing to energy consumption that is 20 percent below California’s Title 24 baseline. The efficient use of building materials also helped reduce the project’s carbon footprint.

The Tenaya Towers are part of the UCSB San Joaquin Apartments and Precinct Improvements Project, a campus master plan led by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP (SOM). SOM worked together with three other architecture firms to design the various residences and dining commons—a collaborative approach that infuses the project with architectural diversity. SOM’s Los Angeles office designed Tenaya Towers, Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects and Kevin Daly Architects designed additional residential complexes, and Kieran Timberlake designed the dining commons.  

Harper Construction, BuroHappold, Stantec, Sherwood Design Engineers, Tom Leader Studio, Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design, Newson Brown, and Jensen Hughes are also listed as part of the project team.

“The projects and people honored by the Sustainable Innovation Awards exemplify thought leadership and creativity in their design solutions to site and building challenges,” said SIA Co- chair Amelia Feichtner of the City of Santa Monica. “It is inspiring that our community is advancing sustainability in a wide range of project scales and in both private and public development.”

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MERCED, Calif. — The University of California, Merced recently completed the first phase of its UC Merced 2020 Project, a master-planned campus expansion project at the University of California’s newest campus.

The first three buildings, representing 20 percent of the project, were completed in August 2018 ahead of schedule. They included a 600-seat dining facility, 20 classrooms and 729 new beds of undergraduate student housing. In addition, an NCAA-level soccer field and nearly 1,000 parking spaces were added during the first phase. Ten additional buildings are currently under construction.

When complete in fall 2020, the entire project will have nearly doubled the campus’ physical capacity and will enable enrollment growth to 10,000 students. The four-year project will also nearly double campus size and boost the economy by $1.9 billion in the San Joaquin Valley and $2.4 billion statewide.

“Today we celebrate an investment in the future of UC Merced, the future of the San Joaquin Valley and future of the state of California,” said UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland at the project’s 2016 groundbreaking ceremony. “The Merced 2020 Project brings tremendous economic growth and allows UC Merced to further fulfill its promise to bring interdisciplinary learning and cutting-edge research opportunities to one of our state’s most rapidly growing regions.”

The first of the three buildings that opened in August 2018 was the Pavilion dining hall, a 37,000-square-foot building designed by SOM Architects that seats 600 people and includes three dining rooms and an outdoor terrace that seats 100.

The second building is Glacier Point Student Housing, a164,000-square-foot building designed by Mahlum Architects that will be the tallest building on campus at six stories high. The residential building will include bedrooms with single, double, and triple beds complete with study and social lounges, 10 classrooms, retail space on that ground floor, and three tennis courts located adjacent to the southern courtyard.

The third building is Granite Pass Student Housing, a 100,000-square-foot building designed by Page Architects that will be four stories high and will include bedrooms with single, double, and triple beds, 10 classrooms and student life space, study lounges and social space. The building also includes Little Lake Boardwalk.

The second phase of the project includes two new state-of-the-art buildings with labs, classrooms and additional study areas. The buildings open in fall 2019 and define the edge of a new quadrangle.

By fall 2020, the third phase of the project will be complete, and the campus expansion will have doubled the physical capacity of UC Merced.  It includes expanded student wellness and counseling facilities, additional student housing, a dedicated transit hub for buses, a student enrollment center, and a swimming pool.

The UC Merced 2020 Project has a total construction budget of $1.338 billion with $660 million expended as of August 2018. The project development team of PPM includes Plenary Group as lead developer, equity provider and financial arranger, Webcor Construction LP, as lead contractor, Skidmore Owings & Merrill Inc. as lead campus planner, and Johnson ControlsInc., as lead operations and management firm.

“Plenary Properties Merced is thrilled to be breaking ground on this historic project, which has strong potential to become a model for higher-education design and delivery,” said Dale Bonner, executive chairman of Plenary Concessions. “We look forward to completing this project on time and on budget and continuing our long-term partnership with UC Merced in the years ahead.”

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SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) received its third LEED Platinum certification for existing buildings — operations and maintenance — for Bren Hall in 2017. This latest certification makes Bren Hall the first building in the country to achieve LEED Platinum three times over.

While this third certification is a clear delineation of the “greenness” of the building, Bren Hall was already recognized as the nation’s “greenest laboratory building” just after its initial construction was completed in 2002 due to its energy-efficient design, and was the first laboratory building in the country to receive LEED Platinum certification for new buildings.

In addition, Bren Hall managed to break another record in 2009 when it earned its second LEED Platinum certification for existing buildings. Bren Hall earned the most recent third certification for operations and maintenance with 93 points.

The list of what makes Bren Hall so green is lengthy. Some of the many features that stand out include natural ventilation — Bren Hall was sited to take advantage of ocean breezes. Offices have operable windows and transoms, so no air-conditioning is required. Heaters in the offices automatically shut off when windows are opened. In addition, Bren Hall is connected to a multi-building chilled water loop on campus to provide cost-effective cooling to the laboratory wing. The Bren chiller is able to take on a portion of the total campus load. The shared system saves as much as 85 percent runtime on the chiller.

Bren Hall also has low-impact restrooms with low-flow fixtures throughout the building. Toilets on the first floor use reclaimed water, and automatic flush valves are used on all toilets. Automatic valves are used on all bathroom sinks. Each of the 10 waterless urinals saves approximately 40,000 gallons of water per year, according to UCSB’s list of sustainable features on the website. White cap roofing is used to reduce “heat island” effect, and large windows are used throughout the building to reduce the need for electricity for lighting. The lighting plan incorporates energy-efficient fixtures and bulbs with daylighting controls for motion, heat and ambient light.

The list of sustainable features of the three-times-Platinum laboratory goes on, and so does the list of awards and honors that the building has earned. In addition to the three LEED Platinum certifications, Bren Hall earned the Flex Your Power Energy Efficiency Award in February 2004 and the International Interior Design Association Environmental Award in May 2003. Bren Hall was the featured site for the Parade of Green Buildings in April 2003 and won the Goleta Valley Beautiful Award in November 2002.

Amongst the organizations that awarded honors to UCSB in 2017 — in addition to the USGBC’s latest Platinum certification — are the Princeton Review, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and the National Recycling Coalition.

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The opening of the International Learning Center in 2011, however, quickly resulted in an overflow of traffic through the Arnold Center and demonstrated a need for a renovation in order to accommodate the increased flow of people and development of the institution.

The $4 million renovation included redesigning the servery section of the dining center, now called the Southside Station @ Arnold, to fuse global cuisine and the Pacific Northwest for a shared experience suitable for international and domestic patrons, according to Richard Turnbull, Associate Director of University Housing and Dining Services.

The project team included Nancy Kalter-Dills and Akiko K. Hrovat from EDG Interior Architecture + Design in San Rafael, Calif., Michael Shea and Andrew Burke from Portland, Ore.-based Soderstrom Architects Ltd., and foodservice consultants Steve Marshall and Mark Walsh from The Marshall Associates. Andersen Construction Company from Portland, with Ken Lewis as the project manager, oversaw the project’s construction.

The updated design features new lighting and a more efficient design suitable for increased traffic and more efficient operations. Additional elements include locally manufactured quartz countertops, flame-resistant fiber tape insulation that allows pans to be isolated from the countertops and large acoustic tiles in the ceiling to enhance the space’s aesthetics and design.

The most notable feature of the Southside Station’s design is the overall efficiency introduced to the space. Nearly 70 percent of food production happens at the serving stations, and well-equipped workspaces allow staff to maximize their efficiency and minimize the amount of space necessary for production. Ample space in the back of the Southside Station allows staff to receive deliveries, store food and prepare food efficiently. The exhaust fans and hood systems in the back area were evaluated and updated to fit current codes.

The project team also took into account the varying tastes of the diverse student body with a wider selection of global cuisines. Individual stations serve a variety of food choices, including sushi, global cuisines, grilled selections, a deli, pizza and breakfast items.

The project was not LEED certified, but does comply with LEED Silver certifications, as required by the university for all campus projects. One element of this requirement is evident in the Southside Station’s center for recycling and composting, which provides the opportunity to separate trash and recyclables at the end of meals.

The enhanced design produced outstanding results as the annual customer count more than doubled from 145,000 to 300,000, and the sales for the year increased from $5.6 million to $7.3 million.
 

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