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.”

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.”

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

Link: Read Article

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

Link: Read Article

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

Link: Read Article

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."

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.”
 

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

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."