Balancing Staff Safety, Health, and Comfort with Energy Efficiency in a Diagnostic Laboratory Environment

Amy Delson, AIA, Strategic Facilities Planning
Chris Abbamonto, CEM, LEED AP®, Aircuity, Inc.

Located in Goleta, California, Pacific Diagnostic Laboratories (PDL), "a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cottage Health System (CHS), is the most comprehensive reference laboratory between Los Angeles and the Bay Area." In 2009, PDL decided to relocate its core laboratory operations to a 25,900-gross-square-foot (gsf), single-story, former telephone building across the street from the Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital. The design challenge was to create a state-of-the-art laboratory providing safe, healthy, and comfortable working conditions for staff while controlling energy usage, enabling change, and supporting patient care.

Clinical and anatomic pathology diagnostic laboratories use hazardous chemicals (e.g., xylene, formalin, and corrosives) and involve preparation/testing of pathogenic specimens. To mitigate hazardous fumes/noxious odors and control contact with infectious agents, single pass air (100 percent exhaust), often at high ventilation rates, is needed. Some portions of the laboratory operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week (with multiple shifts of staff), while others operate 12 hours a day, five days a week. Diagnostic laboratories must also adapt to changes in technology, operations, and individual staff requirements.

The design team prepared an energy analysis for CHS as part the California statewide SavingsByDesign energy efficiency program. Building information modeling enabled coordination of building systems. CHS was very receptive to the design intent, fostering the success of the integrated design approach. The building was fully commissioned by a third-party commissioning agent to ensure the design intent was implemented. Opened in late 2010, feedback from employees, management, and CHS facilities personnel confirms design goals are being met.

The building design includes the following features to increase the energy performance compared to California's Title 24 energy standards by 37.8 percent, and enable programmatic change without compromise to employee health, safety, and comfort or operations:

      • Variable air volume (VAV) system with Aircuity controls to regulate air changes per hour (ACH) from a maximum of 12 ACH to a minimum of 4 ACH depending on measured air quantities of volatile organic compounds, CO2, and particulates; and Phoenix valves to control the VAV chemical fume hoods.
      • Sensible and latent energy recovery on exhaust air stream with pre-heating and pre-cooling coils in all air handling units (AHUs).
      • Variable speed drives for AHUs and pumps.
      • Switchable local exhaust devices—backdraft, snorkel, and canopy hood.
      • Occupancy sensors control lighting in non-laboratory areas.
      • High-performance dual pane tinted glazing.
      • High mass building with added wall and roof insulation.
      • Demand control ventilation on office area AHU.
      • Staged high efficiency chiller plant and boilers.
      • Johnson direct digital controller energy management system.
      • Herman Miller Co/Struc adaptable casework system.

Biographies:

Amy Delson is an architect and laboratory planner with more than 25 years of planning, design, and project management experience with facilities to support science, education, and patient care. She has special expertise in the areas of master planning, programming, functional planning, equipment coordination, and management of complex new and renovated biomedical projects. Founded in 1996, her firm Strategic Facilities Planning (SFP) provides planning services to growing/changing institutions and corporations. Her clients include architects, health systems, universities, and corporations. Recent clinical and pathology laboratory clients include universities (e.g., Stanford University, the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of California, Los Angeles), health systems (e.g., John Muir Health, Sutter Health, Kaiser Permanente, Palomar Health, Intermountain Healthcare, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, and the St. Joseph Health System), counties (e.g., Santa Clara and San Bernardino), and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Graduate School of Design.

Chris Abbamonto, is the southwest regional sales manager at Aircuity, Inc. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in general biology from Concordia University, Irvine, with a Masters of Business Administration from University of California, Irvine. His energy efficiency background has largely focused on laboratory facilities including serving in the past as campus energy manager at the University of California, Irvine.