Government, Sustainable

NASA Aerospace Communications Facility

Cleveland, Ohio | Under Construction
NASA Aerospace Communications Facility 20

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.

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The Near Field Range, an ane­choic lab­o­ra­to­ry for test­ing anten­nas and anten­na sys­tems, is clad in a cus­tom designed etched con­crete full of sci­en­tif­ic equa­tions. The fad­ed graph­ic breaks down the scale of the 60 foot lab­o­ra­to­ry, cre­at­ing a back­drop for the adja­cent out­door ameni­ty space/​plaza.


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NASA Aerospace Communications Facility 13
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NASA Aerospace Communications Facility 7

An artic­u­lat­ed skin wraps the building’s lab­o­ra­to­ries with a sun­screen that con­trols day­light. Slight undu­la­tions were test­ed for visu­al and envi­ron­men­tal impact, this includ­ed a full scale mock-up by the design team to test the per­fo­rat­ed cor­ru­gat­ed metal’s effec­tive­ness to pre­serve views while block­ing harsh sun and glare.

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NASA Aerospace Communications Facility 1
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NASA Aerospace Communications Facility 10 A

The build­ing pro­gram pri­or­i­tized shared research space and opt­ed to pilot a hotel­ing work con­cept over pri­vate offices. The result­ing lounge and con­fer­ence space sits adja­cent to the ravine, pro­vid­ing a dynam­ic back­drop year-round.

NASA Aerospace Communications Facility 12
NASA Aerospace Communications Facility 2
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