The Aero­space Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Facil­i­ty (ACF) will con­sol­i­date research lab­o­ra­to­ries that are cur­rent­ly locat­ed in sev­en dif­fer­ent build­ings on Lewis Field into a sin­gle, state of the art research facil­i­ty con­sist­ing of effi­cient, flex­i­ble lab­o­ra­to­ries, ane­choic test cham­bers, RF-shield­ed lab­o­ra­to­ries, col­lab­o­ra­tion spaces, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy sup­port areas, and a ded­i­cat­ed rooftop plat­form for com­mu­ni­ca­tions antennas. 

A promi­nent fea­ture of the façade is an artic­u­lat­ed skin that reflects the prag­ma­tism of the cam­pus. Etched con­crete, glass, cor­ru­gat­ed met­al, and an undu­lat­ing sun­screen work to broad­cast research and cre­ate inte­ri­or envi­ron­ments that fos­ter inno­va­tion, manip­u­late light­ing, and reflect the research within. 

The build­ing is designed to achieve a LEED Gold rat­ing and be Net Zero Ener­gy Ready (NZER), incor­po­rat­ing ener­gy fea­tures iden­ti­fied in the Net Zero Ener­gy Build­ings Roadmap pre­pared by the Nation­al Renew­able Ener­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry (NREL).

The design team inves­ti­gat­ed ener­gy use dri­vers (includ­ing a cur­rent plug load sur­vey), estab­lished an EUI tar­get, ana­lyzed the build­ing design and sys­tems, per­formed an ener­gy cost sum­ma­ry, cal­cu­lat­ed antic­i­pat­ed CO2 emis­sions, cat­a­loged life cycle costs, iden­ti­fied return on invest­ments for opti­mized build­ing sys­tems, and iden­ti­fied the site’s poten­tial for renew­able ener­gy pro­duc­tion. The design for a pho­to­volta­ic array adja­cent to the build­ing is at-the-ready for when fund­ing becomes available.

Client: Nation­al Aero­nau­tics and Space Admin­is­tra­tion (NASA) John H. Glenn Research Cen­ter at Lewis Field
Pro­gram: Research lab­o­ra­to­ry and office space
Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion: LEED Gold, Net Zero Ener­gy Ready
Size: 55,000 sqft
Cost: $25,000,000

Col­lab­o­ra­tive Part­ners:
APTIM (Safe­ty Con­sul­tant)
dbHMS (Mechan­i­cal, Elec­tri­cal, Plumb­ing, Fire Pro­tec­tion Engi­neer)
Envi­ron­men­tal Design Group (Civil/​Envi­ron­men­tal Engi­neer and Sur­vey­or)
Field Man­age­ment Ser­vices (RFI/EMI Mit­i­ga­tion Design­er)
Guide­post Solu­tions (Secu­ri­ty Con­sul­tant)
HERA Lab­o­ra­to­ry Plan­ners (Lab­o­ra­to­ry Plan­ner)
Ter­ra­con (Geot­ech­ni­cal Engi­neer)
The Con­cord Group (Cost Esti­ma­tion)
Thorn­ton Tomaset­ti (Struc­tur­al Engi­neer)
Thorn­ton Tomaset­ti-Wei­dlinger Pro­tec­tive Design (Pro­tec­tive Design)
Thresh­old Acoustics (Acousti­cal Design­er)
Wave­guide Con­sult­ing (Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Engineer)