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March 15, 2010

Department of Defense to Break Ground on Hazardous Material Response Facility

Lord, Aeck & Sargent and The Christman Company selected as design/build team for $12.5 million, LEED silver-targeted facility

ARLINGTON, Va., March 15, 2010 – The Department of Defense will break ground this month on a $12.5 million Hazardous Material Response Facility (HMRF) targeting LEED Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The design/build team of architecture firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent and construction firm The Christman Company was selected from among four shortlisted teams to design and construct the HMRF. The award was a best value decision that included, among other things, the team’s proposed enhancements to the design of an existing facility program as well as its experience in designing and building laboratories and sustainable facilities.

The HMRF will be located on the Pentagon Reservation and will be home to members of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA), a Department of Defense Agency charged with protecting the Pentagon Reservation and other DoD-occupied facilities in the National Capital Region.

When completed in summer 2011, the two-story HMRF will house lab, storage, training, and administrative spaces to be shared by PFPA responders.

Some of the building’s sustainable design features and products will include:

• Use of recycled content materials, including a steel frame with 95 percent recycled content
• Use of regionally sourced materials
• Sunshades for control of solar heat gain and glare
• A high-efficiency air handling unit with a heat recovery wheel and a building management system
• Bike racks and showers
• Low-flow toilets and faucets

In addition, The Christman Company will carry out construction site waste management practices.

Design speaks to safety and permanence

Sheathed in a ground face concrete masonry unit, both smooth and corrugated aluminum panels and a Low-E glass curtainwall with an anodized aluminum framing system, the HMRF’s exterior design will complement other industrial structures on the Reservation.

“The building’s architectural style can be described as ‘contemporary industrial,’” said Dan Nemec, who is Lord, Aeck & Sargent’s project designer and project architect. “Although the exterior uses industrial materials such as corrugated metal panels, they’re scaled and fastened in such a way as to soften the hardness of the material. Furthermore, the smooth machined metal panels are sleek and refined, and large areas of glass allow light to spill into the occupied areas to give the building a contemporary look appropriate to its office and administrative functions.

“Overall,” Nemec continued, “The building’s design – especially the solidness and texture toward the base – lends a feeling of safety and permanence that is appropriate to the function of the building.”

The Project Team

The HMRF project team includes:

• The Christman Company (Alexandria, Va. office), general contractor and lead on the design/build team
• Lord, Aeck & Sargent (Atlanta office), architect of record
• Newcomb & Boyd (Atlanta), MEP/FP engineer
• KSi/Structural Engineers (Atlanta), structural engineer
• URS Corporation (Atlanta), civil engineer

About Lord, Aeck & Sargent

Lord, Aeck & Sargent is an award-winning architectural firm serving clients in scientific, academic, historic preservation, arts and cultural, and multi-family housing and mixed-use markets. The firm’s core values are responsive design, technological expertise and exceptional service. In 2003, The Construction Specifications Institute awarded Lord, Aeck & Sargent its Environmental Sensitivity Award for showing exceptional devotion to the use of sustainable and environmentally friendly materials, and for striving to create functional, sensitive and healthy buildings for clients. In 2007, Lord, Aeck & Sargent was one of the first architecture firms to adopt The 2030 Challenge, an initiative whose ultimate goal is the design of carbon-neutral buildings, or buildings that use no fossil-fuel greenhouse gas-emitting energy to operate, by the year 2030. Lord, Aeck & Sargent has offices in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Atlanta, Georgia; and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  For more information, visit the firm at www.lordaecksargent.com.

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