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e-mail this article | The Case For Commissioning
Long considered a requirement of high-performance building, two recent projects present new angles on commissioning.
Meanwhile, a team from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) will measure temperature and air quality in representative naturally ventilated spaces over an 18-month period. The results will give the client unprecedented information about how well a naturally ventilated space performs over time, under varying weather conditions, and occupancy loads. At the same time, another team from Carnegie Mellon University will measure acoustics, light, air quality, and thermal conditions for comparison to the same measurements taken in the occupants’ former offices.
Media giant on a mission
After nearly 100 years at the country’s most famous intersection, The New York Times Company moved to a new headquarters a few blocks west of its eponymous Times Square. Its 52-story, 1.6 million-square-foot building will unite most of the company’s 2,500 employees. The tower will also provide commercial office space, which is being leased by the Times’ development partner, Forest City Ratner Companies. Designed jointly with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, FXFOWLE, and Gensler, the building represents an unprecedented and ambitious collaboration among the client, developer, government laboratories, university researchers, and AEC team members.
From the beginning, the Times envisioned a headquarters that was literally transparent—with floor-to-ceiling glazing—to symbolize the transparency of a major news organization. The company also wanted a sustainable building, which meant studying a variety of methods for shading an all-glass envelope. Throughout the process, the client took an active and aggressive role in the planning and design. David Thurm, vice president and chief information officer for The New York Times Company, has led the project since it began in 2000. Thurm acknowledges, “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” It’s the difference between owning and renting. Since the Times intends to reside in its new home for a hundred years, the priorities are different from those of the short-term-leasing tenant.
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| Prior to installing the ceramic-rod shading system on the New York Times building (above right), architects, engineers, and manufacturers collaborated on a mock-up in nearby Queens (above left) to help fine-tune how the system would work.
Photo © David Joseph (left), Thomas Madlener (right) |
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The Times was seeking an innovative, high-performance building on a tight budget, so to assist the process Thurm and his team decided to research the design issues themselves. Aware of the facade and lighting research conducted at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the Times partnered with the labs to find sustainable technologies that could be integrated into the design of its new headquarters. A partnership was eventually established between the client, LBNL, industry, and several public funding agencies, including the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, to conduct field tests on emerging technologies for facade daylighting systems. For nine months, scientists conducted tests on commercially available automated technologies in order to collect data, including shading devices and daylight harvesting, in a full-scale, 4,500-square-foot mock-up, built near one of the Times’ printing facilities in nearby Queens, New York. Gensler, the interior architects for the project, monitored the human factors at issue by mocking up the interior and having workers perform typical office tasks.
What does budget and design have to do with commissioning? Everything. Commissioning follows the rules set forth in the specifications, which historically have focused on quality assurance and equipment operation. With the Times building, the client and the team completely reinvented the process by switching to a performance-based long view coupled with incentives. Therefore, not only were the contractors and subcontractors invited to pre-bid workshops, but pre-screened manufacturers were also included to learn about the Times’ extensive research into materials and systems. FXFOWLE principal Bruce Fowle, FAIA, calls this effort “eliminating the fear factor.” He acknowledges that when atypical strategies are introduced into the construction documents, contractors will pad their bids as a hedge against uncertainty. The more information they have, the more accurate their bids and the fewer callbacks they will have to endure post-occupancy.
