Hyatt Regency Convention Center Hotel - Mechanical Adjustments
- 685,000 SF (overall building area)
- 700 rooms
- 26 stories
- Estimated completion date—September 2022
- Owner, Developer—Salt Lake City CH LLC
- Architect—Portman Architects and FFKR Architects
- GC—Hensel Phelps Construction and Okland Construction
Mechanical Adjustments - Engineers tasked with creating high-rise mechanical systems confront issues in both plumbing and HVAC work—leading to the creation of highly efficient buildings.
Taylor Larsen - October 5th, 2020 | by UC&D Magazine - http://utahcdmag.com/2020/10/we-own-the-sky/
High-rise structures stand out in a number of areas—most notably in the mechanical realm. With many of these proposed structures over 20 stories taller than the three-story, or 75-foot, threshold defined by the International Building Code (IBC 2000), adjustments to standard, low-rise systems are needed for high-rise systems in order to adequately keep tenants and visitors safe.
In order to understand some of those adjustments, Kim Harris, P.E. and President Emeritus of VBFA explains some key differences in what are called “life safety issues” that come about while doing their mechanical engineering work in these high-rise structures. Water pressure, smoke mitigation, stair pressurization and fire sprinkler design are some of the issues that Harris has dealt with while designing the Salt Lake City Convention Center Hotel on 100 South and West Temple.
He says that water pressure is a critical issue for this building, currently still in construction. “The building heights change the way we design piping systems. It changes the design of the equipment, the valves, the piping and everything else to be rated for higher pressures,” Harris says. Although the equipment on the mechanical side doesn’t scale proportionally in cost, which is a relief in terms of overall expenses, it does require equipment rated to a higher number of pounds per square inch.
Harris and the VBFA team are under specific constraints with Salt Lake City’s 26-story Convention Center Hotel project. It took VBFA 18 months to design, which Harris says is because “it’s a complicated site. They had to tear down part of the Salt Palace, which led to a tight site with [the new construction] coming into an existing building.”
While site selection poses a unique test, Harris details how this and other high-rises in SLC present challenges to mechanical engineers tasked with heating and cooling a building.
“The building exterior envelope has a high percentage of glass,” Harris says of the hotel. The exterior glazing that goes to make such a beautiful glass façade on these high-rises is here to stay, as is the unique challenges that using those materials creates. “The south-facing, floor-to-ceiling glass presents a huge challenge.”
Harris says that code prevents a building from using over 30–40-percent glass on a prescriptive basis. But there is a catch. “You can get around that by showing savings in energy-usage in other areas by completing an energy model on the building,” he explains. “And our energy model showed that it beat the energy code overall. It’s still a highly-efficient building.” The malleable energy code allows a more perfect dance between the oft-competing ideas of aesthetics and practicality.
The problem-solving didn’t end there either. “The ground floor is probably even more challenging with its clear glass,” Harris says. The owner wanted full transparency so that there would be no reflection for those on the interior—that way, the ground floor can act as another sales pitch to passersby.
It’s an exciting time for Harris and other mechanical engineers to design these multi-purpose, high-rise buildings. They delight in overcoming the various challenges presented with plumbing, HVAC and energy use on 20-plus story towers.
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