Design competition

By Timothy Allinson, P.E.

Murray Company, Long Beach, Calif.

Presently my firm is involved in a design-build competition for an interesting project. It is a new courthouse here in Long Beach, California. When completed, it will be the largest courthouse in the country. I guess the fact that the City of Long Beach needs such a large courthouse does not speak highly for some of its residents; or perhaps the courthouse is so large purely because it serves a very large area; or maybe it’s a combination of the two. Whatever the reason, once completed, the courthouse will be nearly 600,000 square feet, six stories in height, with 31 courtrooms, and expansive support spaces. It will be visited by an average of 4,500 people per day.

 

The project has a requirement to achieve a LEED Silver rating; however, our team is aiming for LEED Gold. There is a heavy priority on water conservation — since Southern California is essentially a desert — and the stresses on the water distribution system are great. Lake Mead, behind the Hoover Dam — one of Southern California two primary water supplies — is 136 feet below its full water level, which represents about 40% capacity. The last time the lake was this low was in 1965 when upstream Colorado River water was diverted to fill nearby Lake Powell for the first time, but I digress.

One requirement of the RFP (Request for Proposal) is a narrative for the various engineered systems. Toward this end our team was given a sample proposal for another project awarded last year. This proposal was unlike any I have ever seen. It read like a 300-page magazine but without the advertising. It was extremely creative and artistic and was not directed toward the technical person, but toward the layperson — the common man or woman. It was dramatic. It caught your attention. It could not and did not fail.

 

This proposal template granted me a great deal of freedom in scripting my own narrative. I could be as creative as I wanted while selling the water efficiency of the building. This was the focus — not the usual dry technical description of all the building systems, but a passionate summary of the importance of those systems rather than the details of how they worked. This challenge got me excited because this is how I like to write.

 

Keep in mind that the plumbing (water) narrative was only a small but important piece of the template proposal — just two pages of 336. Our project is enormous in scope in that it is a 35-year contract. The successful team must design, finance, build and operate the building for 35 years, so the proposal has a great deal of ground to cover, the plumbing being only a small fraction.

 

Not mentioned in the water narrative is the fact that the courthouse has areas, such as in the basement and between each pair of adjacent courtrooms, that are like miniature jails, or holding cells. This, of course, is addressed in the architectural narrative, but the holding cells require special treatment — vandal resistance of course, but one also has to assume that some of these angry criminals are going to do everything in their power to cause problems while in lock-up, including performing bodily functions on the floor or regurgitating the alcohol they consumed that evening. These are not issues I have to consider in most of my designs, nor are they pleasant to discuss, but a necessary evil for this type of project. They seem an odd clash with the LEED environmental theme.

 

That being said, I will share with you the narrative I submitted for this proposal. It is not educational, but hopefully interesting. If you read between the lines, some of you will be able to envision schematics of the general system concepts. Others might wonder what in the world I am talking about. I welcome your feedback — happy reading.

 

Water systems

 

Planet earth is unique as the only known planet to possess water. It is also the only known planet to contain life. Life cannot exist in the absence of water. The same life-supporting water has been on earth for 4.5 billion years. It moves from the sky to the ground to the ocean, but it is the same water — never created nor destroyed. In every glass of water you drink there are molecules that may have passed through dinosaurs, plants across the globe, and possibly famous people from history, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes or William Taft — a strange thought, but true.

 

Despite the unique abundance of water on earth, there is a diminishing quantity of fresh water that is suitable to drink. Only 3% of the water on earth is fresh water, and only 1% of that is accessible for human use. While fresh water is a renewable resource, we are consuming it faster that it can be replenished. In the 20th century, the global population tripled, while the consumption of water increased by a factor of six. By the year 2020, the Los Angeles Basin is expected to have 22 million people, each consuming an average of 160 gallons of water per day by today’s standards. In contrast, millions of people in arid regions live on only three gallons of water per day, and the country of Jordan turns its water mains on only one day a week. Many postulate that we will run out of fresh water before we run out of oil. For this reason water is frequently referred to as the next oil — a precious commodity that may be the subject of wars in years to come.

The optimist says, “The glass is half full.” The pessimist says, “The glass is half empty.” But the engineer says, “The glass is twice as big as it needs to be,” and the water engineer says, “The glass contains billions of life-sustaining molecules that have made remarkable journeys that started with the formation of planet earth.” It is with this unique vision that we will design the water systems that will serve the occupants of the Long Beach Courthouse.

 

Water will be conserved in the courthouse with the use of high efficiency plumbing fixtures, graywater recycling, high efficiency irrigation, AC condensate recycling, and reuse of the cooling tower condenser water blow-down. These systems will produce water efficiency in a manner that requires little to no maintenance and energy consumption.

 

The high efficiency plumbing fixtures will include dual flush 1.6/1.1 GPF water closets for the women and 1.28 GPF water closets for the men. The men’s urinals will be pint-flush (0.125 GPF) rather than waterless for ease of maintenance. Lavatories will be fitted with 0.25 gpm solar-sensor faucets that use ambient light to power their hands-free operation. Preliminary calculations reveal that the application of these fixtures will produce a 54% water savings versus the conventional LEED baseline.

 

Wastewater from lavatory sinks will drain to a central graywater treatment system in the basement. Biofiltration and disinfection will allow the recycling of up to 3,000 gallons per day to be used for cooling tower make-up — water that would normally go to the sanitary sewer. Additional cooling tower make-up water will be captured from the air conditioning condensate discharge — free water that is extracted from the relatively humid air of Long Beach.

 

Rainwater is a rich source for water conservation in some regions. Originally a desert, Southern California does not lend itself to efficient rainwater recycling systems due to the short and unreliable rain season. The real estate, equipment and maintenance required for the reuse of rainwater would not prove cost effective for the courthouse. Instead, rainwater will be directed to the landscaped areas and used to supplement the irrigation supply. This process will not only reduce the water required for irrigation, but will also satisfy the requirements of SUSMP, the Standard Urban Stormwater Mitigation Plan mandated by the City of Long Beach, and provide two points toward the building’s LEED rating — storm water credits 6.1 and 6.2. Irrigation will be further supplemented by the reuse of cooling tower blow-down water that is relatively clean due to the use of a Dolphin chemical-free condenser water treatment system.

 

With a goal of greater water efficiency in the future, the building’s water system will be piped such that reclaimed water from the water utility will be used when it eventually becomes available. The reclaimed utility water will be used for flushing fixtures, cooling tower make-up (in excess of condensate and graywater supply), and irrigation not provided by the stormwater system and cooling tower blow-down.

 

Hot water will be generated centrally to serve the courthouse with the use of a 97% efficient gas-fired central water heater located on the roof. Water will be circulated and distributed vertically to minimize the distance between the hot water supply and the fixture, thus reducing water waste during hot water delivery.

 

Through this collective approach, the water system serving the courthouse will be a model for efficient design requiring little maintenance, operating cost and energy consumption.

 

Timothy Allinson is a senior professional engineer with Murray Co., Mechanical Contractors, in Long Beach, Calif. He holds a bsme from Tufts University and an mba from New York University. He is a professional engineer licensed in both mechanical and fire protection engineering in various states, and is a leed accredited professional. Allinson is a past-president of aspe, both the New York and Orange County Chapters.