The new 225,000 square foot high school building followed the Ohio School Facilities Commission standards. The building includes faculty/administrative offices; student classrooms; science, career tech, and computer labs; media center; student dining; large dining area and culinary arts kitchen; two gymnasiums; wrestling room; and weight rooms. Unique features to the facility are the Planetarium and fixed seating theatrical 7,800 square foot auditorium.
Mechanical systems design encompasses complete HVAC and plumbing systems. The HVAC system consist of 13 variable air volume air handlers with variable speed drives utilizing heat recovery wheels supplying 271,000 CFM to fan powered variable volume terminal units within the space. Heating and cooling is accomplished with two 7,000 MBH flex-tube boilers and two 350-ton air cooled chillers. Piping systems are of the primary secondary arrangement.
Electrical design included electrical service connection; back-up power generation; computer controlled exterior and interior lighting; special theatrical lighting and control; and industrial power distribution and equipment wiring in the career tech lab.
The new Penta Career Center consists of a 500,000 square foot Main Building plus a 25,000 square feet Maintenance Building of. The Main Building houses a career-technical high school facility, grades 10 through 12, serving sixteen (16) school districts in northwest Ohio. Included are vocational instruction spaces focusing on Arts & Communications; Business, Management, & Information Technology; Industrial & Engineering Systems; Environmental & Agricultural Systems; Health Services; and Human Services. The Main Building includes general classroom spaces in addition to laboratory spaces for Cosmetology, Culinary Arts, Dental Assistance, Animal Science, Floral design/Greenhouse Production, Gas & Diesel Engine Systems, Construction Trades (Carpentry, Electricity, Masonry, HVAC/Piping), Automotive Technology & Collision Repair, Welding, Machining Technologies, and Computer System & Networking. The building also contains administration offices for Adult Education, High School, and District Superintendent.
The Maintenance Building includes a central services plant for chilled and hot water distribution with water cooled chillers, ice storage, high efficiency hot water boilers, and a central emergency generator. In addition the building contains a repair facility for district vehicles and facilities services offices.
The primary electrical distribution system was designed to distributed electrical power to five locations around the facility.
The complexes HVAC systems were designed to reduce energy consumption and to allow the Owner complete flexibility in scheduling the use of the building.
As part of the design team JDRM Engineering provided design services for the following: HVAC; Plumbing and Piping; Fire Suppression; Lighting Interior and Exterior; Electrical Power Distribution; and Fire Alarm.
This new ambitious Buckeye Local Schools’ construction project incorporated two connecting elementary schools with shared support spaces. These share support spaces include gymnasium, cafeteria, media center, and mechanical rooms. The innovative design allowed the design team to engineer services to central locations serving the 140,000 square foot facility.
The HVAC system is a closed loop ground source geothermal heating system with water source heat pumps. The well field consists of 208 wells, 405 feet deep, covering a surface area of almost 2 acres with 31.9 miles of piping. Dedicated energy recovery ventilators are located in each wing to precondition outside air to each heat pump and reduce energy cost. The system utilizes exposed spiral ductwork in the corridors, cafeteria, gymnasium, and media center. DDC controls allow operation of the system to be monitored from any computer in the building with web browser software and provides maximize energy conservation through scheduling specific heat pumps to operate only when the associated zone is occupied.
Electrical engineering design included classroom telecommunications; fluorescent lighting of the classrooms, corridor, and offices; HID lighting in the gymnasium, cafeteria, and exterior site; indirect/direct fluorescent lighting in the art rooms; HID indirect lighting with matching wall sconces in the media center and entrance corridors