The primary function of a school is to provide an optimum environment where teachers can communicate with students. In fact, up to 60% of classroom activities involve oral communications between teachers and students or between students. Speech intelligibility is critical in schools. But very often acoustic design is overlooked and the result is a poor acoustical environment.
Joseph Drewes serves as a Sustainability Professional at DBR, managing the firm’s LEED certified projects, energy models, and answering all questions about sustainable design.
DBR Engineering worked with Michael Hsu Office of Architecture on a five-story mixed-use development in Houston’s Uptown area, near the Galleria. The 112,000 square foot building is now home to Zadok Jewelers’ new showroom, where they moved into a 26,000 square foot space.
Designing a new building or retrofitting equipment with energy or sustainability in mind is often an afterthought. There are many opportunities for long-term improvement of a building’s efficiency and occupant comfort that are overlooked. Both occupant comfort and operating cost can be improved with the implementation of simple low-cost to no-cost sustainable design strategies.
3400 at CityLine is a new LEED Gold commercial office building along US 75 Central Expressway at Renner Road in Richardson, Texas. The five-story 300,000 sf building features 60,000 sf floor plates and a two-story atrium connecting the north and south entrances.
Getting the energy modeling right starts with choosing the right platform and associated tools. We recently evaluated our energy models and process using cove.tool compared with another common software tool, TRACE 700.
The expansion and renovation of Holocaust Museum Houston (HMH) creates the nation’s fourth-largest Holocaust museum and Jewish Cultural Heritage Museum in the country. The expanded facilities allow the museum to significantly broaden its community outreach and impact. PGAL was the architect of record for the project, which received LEED Certification.
When the Houston Independent School District was ready to replace one of their existing schools, they took the opportunity to really explore new horizons. The three-story, 252,000 sf Ross Shaw Sterling Aviation High School includes an aviation magnet program to produce the next generation of pilots, mechanics, engineers, and aviation leaders.
As specialists in building systems engineering, many facets of building design, construction, and operations are within our range of influence, but energy is the one area where we have an opportunity to make the greatest contribution toward mitigating climate change.
Sam Houston Math, Science, and Technology Center is located in Houston, Texas, and is part of Houston ISD. The vision for this 369,141 sf project, designed by Stantec, integrated a new comprehensive high school, which included renovating and incorporating the recently constructed science wing.