Building Statistics

Occupants will vary from building to building. However, the majority of the occupants will be located in the Administrative building. These occupants are in an office environment, working to support The Annenberg Foundation Trust. The Annenberg Foundation Trust values intelligent, driven young professionals. These types of young professionals have high expectations for their work environment in terms of aesthetics, functionality and comfort.

SCHEDULE

Schematic

Design

JULY 2014

Construction

Documents

FEBRUARY 2015

Bid/Plan

Check

JULY 2015

OCTOBER 2014

Design

Development

SEPTEMBER 2015

Construction

SEPTEMBER 2017

Note: the total cost of the Sunnylands Addition is not made public as per owner request

ARCHITECTURE

The architecture on the Sunnylands campus is intended to fit well with the existing architecture while still standing out in the stark desert surroundings. O2 architecture, a firm local to the Southern California, has a well developed understanding of the architectural style surrounding the area. They worked closely with the owner to develop an understanding of their wants and needs. In a fusion of modern beauty and functionality, O2 Architecture has developed four buildings that are responsive to their environment, enticing for young professionals and appropriately elegant for the high profile visitors to Sunnylands.

The three buildings on the Northern side of the campus are more or less out of the public eye. These spaces are essentially "back of house" areas. The interiors of these spaces will most likely remain out of view to most visitors, so the focus of the architectural efforts is on the facades. The buildings sit quietly in the background with sleek modern matrials and few eye-catching elements.

RENDER COURTESY

OF O2 ARCHITECTURE

RENDER COURTESY

OF O2 ARCHITECTURE

The fourth building, the Administrative building, makes much more of a visual impact. With its inwardly sloped roof, curtain walls, exposed structure and clean materials, the light and airy building stands out from the hot and dense Palm Springs surroundings. Yet, the building has its place. By keeping the building to one story and using an abundance of glass to allow views through the building, O2 Architecture has allowed the administrative building to tip its hat to the mountains surrounding the property, rather than obstruct them.

All four of these buildings come togher in the North West corner of the complex. The complex is a registered historic site due to the historical figures that have spent time at the Sunnylands retreat. However, since the new construction is on a previously un-developed piece of the property, there are no restrictions for new construction in terms of preservation.

CODES USED AT SUNNYLANDS

2010 California Building Code (Based on the 2009 IBC)

ACI 318-08

ASCE 7-05

ASCE 7-10

2010 California Fire Code

2010 California Mechanical Code (Based on the 2009 Uniform Mechanical Code)

2011 California Electrical Code

2010 California Plumbing Code (Based on the 2009 Uniform Plumbing Code)

2013 Building Energy Efficiency Standards

SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability is a major focus on this project. The Annenberg foundation values the impact their campus has on their macro and micro environments and, therefore, went to great lengths to investigate many potential energy saving methods. In an effort to be conscious of the frequent droughts in California, the buildings do not utilize water based cooling methods. Furthermore, in order to process any collectable water that falls on site without the use of chemical treatment plants, the rainwater will be harvested and processed through an engineered wetland. Additionally, it is a strict goal of the Sunnylands campus to decrease energy use in existing facilities and offset any use with energy harvested on site. In order to help quantify environmental efforts, the administrative building on the Sunnylands campus is intended to reach LEED Platinum certification. Certain intiatives, like natural ventilation, high performance glass on all windows, the use of overhangs for shading putposes, and the use of renewable/recycled materials such as wood.

TAKEAWAY

Natural Ventilation

LEED Platinum certification

Net-zero energy consumption

Solar arrays on site

Engineered wetlands

RENDER COURTESY OF HGA

BUILDING ENCLOSURE

The architecture on the Sunnylands campus is intended to fit well with the architecture both on site and around Southern California while still standing out in the stark desert surroundings. O2 architecture, a firm local to the Southern California, has a well-developed understanding of the architectural style surrounding the area. They worked closely with the owner to develop an understanding of their wants and needs. In a combination of function and beauty, O2 architecture has developed 4 buildings that are responsive to their specific environment, high performance and enticing for young professionals.

The building with the most complicated enclosure is the Administrative Office Building. The building utilizes a facade of mostly glass in a storefront wall. However, this glass is specified to be high performance and utilize frit where direct sunlight is a concern. In addition to being conscious of the materials used, O2 designed the building intentionally a-symmetric to further help with the mitigation of sunlight. The North end of the building opens up to bring in more light than the South side where solar heat gain is a concern. The other materials used on the building exterior are exposed steel structural elements and aluminum.

The three buildings on the North side of campus are support buildings which help with the operation and maintenance of the campus. These structures are essentially "back of house" areas. On these buildings, there are two main design considerations for the exteriors: material renewability and heat management. The exterior walls of these buildings are designed to provide most of the light from the North facades, where heat gain is less of a concern. The materials compliment the new Administrative Office Building rather than overpowering it. The structures are designed to provide shading on the facades to prevent the amount of heat transfer into the building, the biggest mechanical concern in such a hot climate.

The roof of the Administrative Office Building is by far the most interesting on campus. Rather than sloping down and out in a standard gable, the roof is sloped inward. The slope helps create overhangs on the North and South facades, as well as a way to manage water without the use of gutters. The roof is designed to transport the water down the valley to a collection location where it will be piped to the engineered wet lands for treatment. In addition to the unique slope, the open office spaces within the building also contain two circular sky lights that operate in conjunction with big ass fans to serve as a natural ventilation mechanism.

The storage building consists of two main spaces. On the plan West side of the facility, there is garage space for the various vehicles used to navigate the Sunnylands facility. On the plan East side of the building, there will mostly be small offices and locker rooms. Only the east side of the building will be conditioned. The West side will have exhaust to combat any exhaust fumes generated by the vehicles in shop.

STORAGE

BUILDING ONE

BUILDING ONE DESCRIPTION

OPERATIONS

BUILDING TWO

BUILDING TWO DESCRIPTION

BUILDING THREE

BUILDING THREE DESCRIPTION

The archive building is a unique building due to the items stored within. Over the years, the Sunnylands complex has accrued many valuable items as gifts from the important visitors who have spent time on the complex. The items range from cars to paintings. This variety of items introduces many different requirements in terms of temperature, humidity and lighting.

BUILDING FOUR

ADMINISTRATIVE

BUILDING FOUR DESCRIPTION

The administrative building is the most occupant dense building being added to the Sunnylands campus. The building will house offices used for those who work for The Annenberg Foundation Trust. The administrative building is the most energy intensive structure going on campus. It has undergone the most strategizing and energy saving efforts to combat the amount of energy being used inside.

RETURN TO TOP

All floor plans depicted above courtesy of O2 Architects

BUILDING STATISTICS 2

Building Statistics 2

LIGHTING | ELECTRICAL

Sunnylands is serviced by 13.8 kVA from the existing property. The site has an existing transformer for the main building on the east side of the campus. In this addition, Sunnylandsw will be getting a new utility meter that feeds into a 480/277V 1200A switchboard. From tehre, energy is distributed to five main areas: the engineered wetlands, the operations building, the guardhouse, the archive building and the administrative building. Each of these spaces will have their own transformer (T-1A through T-1E) that take the opwer down from high power to low power.

The lighting schemes of the buildings on campus vary greatly. The Administrative building, the space where the Annenberg Foundation is hoping to draw in many young and cutting edge employees, focuses on naturla light that will make for a good working environment. This space ustililzes a lot of glass, both on the wall and through the use of skylights. The spaces on campus that are meant for hands on work focus on providing enouugh task lighting for those working there. Conversely, the archival space has strict requirements about the amount of light and type of light allowed into the spaces. The lighting requirements vary based on section and the type of items being preserved. The main concern in these spaces is preservation of color in artwork.

MECHANICAL

Each new building on the complex is treated differently due to their unique requirements. The main building, the administration building, utilizes variable refrigerant flow in conscious effort to reduce water consumption in the wake of California droughts. Heating will be accomplished through boiler and domestic water heater.

The Administrative, Archival, OPS and Storage Buildings are served by two-part RTUs all supplied at 460V 3 phase with bi-plenum fans. The Administrative, Archival and OPS buildings utilize energy recovery wheels in the RTUs at 80% efficiency. The units utilize DX Cooling and electric heating. The main concerns of the systems, cooling, total to 424.9 MBH. Additionally, there are 4 VRV Outdoor Units (one for each of the aforementioned RTUs) that total that can handle 1047 MBH of heating and 681 MBH of cooling.

STRUCTURAL

The new buildings at Sunnylands are all one story tall and are relatively simple structurally. The most complicated building, the Administrative building, utilizes mostly HSS members, W flange beams and AESS special connections. The open office area requires larger spans to accommodate the office layout and is coordinated on the architectural level for the slatted ceiling integration. Above the slatted ceiling, a series of W flange beams work to frame out the area in regular bays. Difficulties arise around the two sky lights and the extra doorways. In these areas, W8x13s are designed at an angle 45 degrees askew from the grid. The exterior walls on the long faces of the building (plan north and south) incorporate diagonal bracing as both an architectural feature and method to combat lateral loads.

CONSTRUCTION

Construction at Sunnylands is scheduled to begin in the Fall of 2015. The contract type is a design-bid-builf. The construction of the site is phased to allow for early opening of the Administration Building before the three other buildings. Since each building on site is a one-story facility, the constuction sequence can't be staged vertically. However, the trade sequence on site goes from one building to the next with water-tight milestones ranging from Winter 2017 to late Fall of 2017.

The construction of the additions to the Sunnylands campus is aimed to be as sustainable as possible with a zero-waste inniative. All waste products produced onsite during the construction of the four new buildings will be donated and repurposed within the Valley community.

RETURN TO TOP