Contrary To Some Earlier Predictions, New Interest Surges In Returning To Offices Post-Pandemic

“For the majority of companies and people, they’re going to want to be back in the office,” and “What we’ll see in the office space of the future is lots of amenities, more vibrancy, and more flexibility for users.”

Santa Monica High School Discovery Building

"Employing a raised floor system in all instructional spaces in the new Discovery Building was a critical aspect of designing for ongoing/future change. The raised floor has facilitated a displacement ventilation approach to heating and cooling, using the space below as a giant plenum which can provide air wherever it is needed, even as spaces get reconfigured. Providing power and data through a raised floor system also facilitates change. It has already proven possible to make changes in the way teachers want to use their spaces, even during construction."

Herman Miller

“Tate’s raised access floors provided the seamless transition that Herman Miller was looking for to connect the indoor and outdoor areas of the building and establish a cohesive and coordinated space. The delivery and install were quick and straightforward, which helped keep our tight schedule on track, and the end result is a modern and sophisticated floor for the museum-like showroom.”

California Department of General Services

“Our design team selected the raised access flooring to provide a low-pressure under floor air distribution (UFAD) system that would help us meet the project’s stringent indoor air quality and energy efficiency goals.”

McGough Construction

“The McGough Headquarters project focused on transforming an existing trucking transfer station into a modern, open office. The use of an underfloor air system allowed the design team to condition the space without hanging ductwork from the existing wood barrel-vaulted bowstring truss roof, the signature element of the existing building. Focusing the delivery of conditioned air at the level of the occupants allowed for a sustainable solution that brought thermal comfort and control where it is needed most. In addition, the use of the raised access flooring allowed for future flexibility of the open plan office arrangement, allowing for future reconfiguration of data and electrical connections to workstations and offices.”

Donald Dungan Library At Lions Park

“The Costa Mesa Library utilizes a Tate raised floor system that provides several environmental benefits as well as contributes to the energy-efficient sustainable design strategy that resulted in a LEED Gold certification. Conditioned air is supplied by way of evenly distributed floor registers served by ductwork and equipment located in the raised floor plenum. In this way, greater interior comfort is provided to library patrons by cooled or heated air being delivered at floor level rather than supplied from distant ceiling mounted registers. This scheme enabled us to reduce the size of air handling equipment as a smaller volume of conditioned air is supplied where it is needed in contrast with a higher volume of air blown from a distant ceiling location. Reduced equipment size, reduced initial construction cost as well as on-going maintenance and energy costs.”

Jupiter Township Water Treatment Facility

“Choosing raised access floors for our control room meant that we would never have to worry if our networking and electrical requirements changed – our underfloor infrastructure could easily change with us. Having the ability to customize the floor aesthetic was a bonus, and we couldn’t be happier with the finished product!”

HOK Designs NASA's Greenest Building at Johnson Space Center

"HOK's design for NASA's Building 20 at Johnson Space Center in Houston, a three-story 83,000-square-foot contemporary office facility, has achieved LEED — Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - Platinum certification. The integrated architectural and design strategies include a highly efficient building envelope, an underfloor air distribution system, a total energy recovery wheel and a solar hot water harvesting system on the roof that accounts for 18 percent of the building's domestic hot water consumption. Building 20 is designed to be 57 percent more energy efficient than a typical office building and serves as a public showcase for high-performance, environmentally sound building design and construction at the Johnson Space Center."

A Higher Standard: The Christman Building

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Christman building in Lansing, MI not only is a state landmark but also made history as the world's first building to be awarded two LEED Platinum certifications (LEED Core and Shell and LEED Commercial Interiors). Preserving the building's rich architectural history and achieving LEED certification challenged The Christman Company as well as Detroit-based SmithGroup, the architect and engineer of record for the project. A raised access floor system was the solution — one that uniquely supported both historic preservation and sustainability, helping to adapt the historic building to meet the needs of a 21st century corporate facility...."I think that’s one of the neat things about the raised floor system. More than any other system I'm aware of, it allows new systems to go in buildings, new or historic, that weren't necessarily made to be flexible and contributes in a big way to their sustainability, in this case without compromising the building's historic integrity."
 

Ron Staley, senior vice president, Mid-Atlantic operations and director,
historic preservation at The Christman Company
ED+C, June 2010

Banner Bank Building

The Banner Bank Building is a model for high performance buildings in the US. The art-deco inspired building is the first LEED Platinum building in Idaho, earning 49 out of 62 possible LEED credits in the Core & Shell category. Worldwide, Banner Bank was the 16th Platinum building but the first speculative office building to achieve this level. "We created a beautiful, high-performance building that’s good for the environment. And it didn’t cost us any more to do it."

Sustainable Design Reaches a Highmark

"An underfloor air distribution system (UFAD) with a platform from Tate Access Floors serves the office spaces. Currently, about 15 to 20 percent of all new commercial office space employs a UFAD. UFAD counts toward one point for LEED because of its ventilation effectiveness."
 

Green Building Report: Raised Floors - A Green Building Advantage

"When PA's Rachel Carson State Office Building was designed in the early 1980s, green buildings were unheard of. A look at what the Carson building missed shows how raised floors can help make a design both green and cost- effective."

Green Ideas for Energy Efficient HVAC Systems

"As more projects stress sustainability and energy conservation, owners are rethinking the basics of building design to balance long-term functional and operational efficiency with sensitivity to the environment and resource use. Raised-floor ventilation systems, a staple of computer rooms for decades, have also been adapted successfully for various building types."

There is More Beneath Your Feet than just the Floor: Underfloor Air Distribution

"One of the more exciting benefits that UFAD affords building owners and administrators is improved energy efficiency. The systems require less airflow volume, lower fan power and a lower air supply temperature than a traditional system in order to cool the same space. This more efficient air distribution is able to help building owners bring their facilities one step closer to meeting LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification standards."

Climate Controlled

Performing 66 percent better than Model National Energy guidelines suggest, Manitoba Hydro Place, a new state-of-the-art corporate headquarters in downtown Winnipeg, is setting new standards for commercial office buildings. Extending below the single storey of underground parking is the province's largest geothermal system with 280 boreholes, each one 125 metres deep. These tap the earth's natural energy storage for both heating and cooling purposes. Because of the raised floor ventilation provided at each floor, the bulk of heating and cooling radiates from exposed concrete slabs above.
 

Property Owner: Manitoba Hydro
Canadian Architect, January 2010

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47 Million Green Regional Bus Facility Opens in Tempe

Valley Metro driver John W. Blake gazed around at the comfortable, glistening, spacious drivers' lounge in the brand new East Valley Bus Operations & Maintenance Facility in Tempe and had just one word to say. "Awesome!" Ken J. Anderson, project architect, said evaporative cooling is used throughout the facility to save energy and money, and an under-floor air distribution system reduces energy usage by up to 47 percent.
 

AZ Central.com, October 2007

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Air Distribution Effectiveness with Stratified Air Distribution System

The parameter study had 102 cases that formed a database. The new recommended value of zone air distribution effectiveness(Ez), with the Low-Height-Throw Under-Floor Air Distribution (L-UFAD) systems is 1.05 ~ 1.35 for offices and classrooms, 1.2 ~ 1.6 for restaurants and retail shops, and 1.6 ~ 2.0 for workshops and auditoriums. The Ez for the Traditional Displacement Ventilation (TDV) system is close to that for the L-UFAD system.
 

Kisup Lee, Student member, Zheng Jiang, PhD, Qingyan Chen, PhD, ASHRAE Fellow ASHRAE
Paper based on findings resulting from ASHRAE Research Project RP-1373, 2009

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COVID-19 and Building Performance: The Big Picture

"The result in this case has been improved air quality directly to where people are working. Because UFAD uses a lower static pressure for air delivery, there are also energy savings due to fan power reduction loads. This combination of improved indoor air quality and fan power energy reduction loads can make UFAD an attractive choice when considering the impacts that COVID-19 adjustments may have on building performance."

Stephen Katz, Architect and Senior Associate, Gensler
July 2020

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To make offices safe during COVID-19, buildings need a breath of fresh air

"Underfloor ventilation creates safer and better air quality with the added benefit of being more sustainable. The New York Times Building and the San Francisco Federal Building are just two examples of places that opted for this type of ventilation long before an infection started sweeping the globe."

Ambrose Aliaga Kelly, Technical Director, Gensler
June 2020

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Can Better Indoor Air Fight Covid-19?

Traditional displacement or underfloor air distribution (UFAD) systems can minimize air currents and the horizontal movement of air, says Cooper. “UFAD systems basically create an air zone per occupant workstation.”

David Cooper, Mechanical Engineer, President of Global Property and Buildings at WSP
May 2020

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Special Report: William McDonough

"We’ve had thousands of architects come through our buildings to witness our use of raised flooring. We’re seeing raised flooring as the standard in Silicon Valley. It allows us to use nighttime air, so everybody has fresh air. It’s a marvelous thing."

There is More Beneath Your Feet than just the Floor: Underfloor Air Distribution

"With UFAD systems, airflow can be controlled at each air distribution vent so that individual users can adjust the supply of conditioned air in their own space. The air distribution method described earlier delivers more uniform temperatures throughout rooms in a building and better ventilation ensures cleaner air by removing dust and particles from the environment."

CSC Headquarters

"The most healthful air in the building, with an underfloor air-delivery system, is in the first six feet from the floor. It's an investment that forward-thinking companies make in their employees."

5 Radical Trends in Outpatient Facility Design

UFAD is safe for outpatient care facilities like the one in Holland, Mich. "Spectrum's infection control experts checked it out and found no inherent issues from an infection control standpoint," he says. "It's actually healthier, because the air is coming to the occupants in its freshest state. You're not mixing the stale air that's rising through the ductwork."

UFAD - Investment by Forward-Thinking Companies

“The most healthful air in the building, with an underfloor air-delivery system, is in the first six feet from the floor. It’s an investment that forward-thinking companies make in their employees.”
 

A Higher Standard: The Christman Building

In addition to delivering anticipated utility savings of 25 percent, the underfloor air distribution system is providing 200 to 300 percent more ventilation to the breathing zone than required by ASHRAE Standard 62.1-2004. The system creates a better work environment for building occupants. The air is pressurized under the floor, delivered to people where they're sitting, and then passed overhead to return air ducts in the ceiling. "As a result, the energy-efficient system makes for a healthier environment in which occupants have the ability to adjust the temperature within their workspaces for greater comfort," says Jeff Fedewa, project manager at The Christman Company.

Mechanical & HVAC Design Goes Underfloor

"Benefits of the UFAD system used in this project include an increased number of temperature control zones using adjustable swirl diffusers per cubicle or private office, UFAD systems are much quieter than overhead VAV systems which can be an issue in open office environments, improved ventilation effectiveness since supply air is introduced at low level, and improved IAQ since only the first 4 ft of the occupied zone is completely mixed and room air is allowed to stratify above."

Green Building Focus
October 2009

Link: Read Article

Underfloor air conditioning technology: The sustainable way to service space

"Underfloor air conditioning has come of age. Worldwide, major developers are embracing this technology for its height-saving benefits in new builds, and headroom increases in refurbishments."

Engineering healthy workplaces – Considerations in response to COVID-19

"To better incorporate strategic pressurization in workplaces to induce airflow that will lead to improved air quality, underfloor air displacement (UFAD) systems should be considered. These systems introduce clean supply air at the floor and accept return air at the ceiling, resulting in a once through pathway of airflow across the breathing zone of occupants before the air is returned to the central filtration system or exhausted directly out of the building."

How Office Spaces Activate Mixed-Use Developments

"Everyone wants to maximize ceiling heights and the best way to do that is minimize the bulking infrastructure that is usually hidden away in an acoustical ceiling system...Some buildings use raised floor systems to limit what gets crammed into the overhead space."