Solutions

Sustainable Design - For the Museum of Glass, the cone serves as an innovative example of heat recovery where the exhaust/combustion air above the furnaces is used to heat domestic water and other building areas. Notkin's use of sensitive air quality controls also reduces outside air quantities below code required levels while maintaining indoor air quality. In another example for the Experience Music Project, rather than run energy-consuming equipment, Notkin's design took advantage of nature's cooling by using outside air. Once heat is generated in the building, it is kept inside as long as possible and reused in other areas where needed. Also, Notkin supported Seattle City Light funding to pay up to 70 percent of the initial costs for energy conservation beyond code, which paid for part of the cooling system and other sensors in the building.

Cost Savings - For Benaroya Hall, Notkin worked with contractors early in the process to review prices and alternative designs, and recommended suppliers who could handle the high performance requirements of the system within budget. In addition, Notkin helped the owner obtain a grant from Seattle City Light to be used toward the purchase of a high efficiency chiller and carbon monoxide sensors for the below-grade parking garage. Our approach resulted in five energy rebates with Seattle City Light equaling over $130,000, as well as lowered future maintenance costs and total construction costs.

Innovation - In 2003, Notkin received an award for design innovation from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Washington for the Museum of Glass project in Tacoma - a 75,000-sf interactive working arts and hot shop facility with gallery areas and educational classrooms. Notkin has also worked on complex facilities requiring systems flexibility in high-use spaces, such as the Experience Music Project, another award winning ACEC project featuring an interactive museum and educational facility celebrating the musical arts. Other opportunities strengthening our capabilities in innovation include the renovation of Tacoma School District's historic Stadium High School, as well as the University of Washington's new William H. Foege Building.

Flexible Design - Notkin's engineers are experts in the design of highly technical and flexible systems. For the Benaroya Research Institute, Notkin designed the system with optimum flexibility to allow for different tenant needs and uses in the future. We also applied this approach to the UW Electrical Engineering/Computer Sciences & Engineering Building, which allowed the owner to combine or divide individual zones as space needs change in the future. Another example involved EMP where exhibits are changed every six months to ten years. The mechanical systems are generic in fashion, providing great range in cooling and ventilation capacity, while minimizing energy consumption and achieving tight museum tolerances. The systems were established before the first exhibits were developed for the building and have required no modifications.

Complexity - Notkin's engineers have proven experience in the complex issues involved in merging mechanical systems for varying space uses. One of our primary challenges on the Museum of Glass project was to design environmental systems capable of handling an industrial glass blowing shop, while at the same time, meet the environmentally sensitive requirements for the museum where air quality, temperature, and humidity control needed to be tightly controlled. EMP's high-tech requirements also stretched the traditional limits of design in terms of creating an untraditional mechanical system for a complicated non-linear building structure. For example, cooling loads well in excess of 120 watts per square foot were designed in the electronic support areas to handle evolving technologies.