When designing a building, there are some things that are pretty straightforward: plumbing fixtures need water supply and drain; you need lighting to see; power for that lighting and other equipment; and you may also want some telecommunications and life safety/security systems – the things that Make Buildings Work. The fixture types that you choose
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Building Information Modeling (BIM) has rapidly changed the construction industry in recent years. One of the most powerful uses of BIM is the ability to integrate models from the architect, structural engineer, MEP engineers and others to discover and resolve potential conflicts in constructability before the project moves into construction. This allows the design team
Building owners are becoming more and more concerned about their building’s energy usage. Reducing the amount of energy a building uses can both help reduce annual costs for the building owner and reduce the building’s environmental impact. The largest piece of the pie for a typical commercial building’s energy is used by the heating, ventilation,
Hospitals are among the most challenging buildings to design, construct, and maintain. One of the most distinctive and code-heavy aspects of hospitals is that power supplied to the building must be split into separate “branches” of power. Sorting through applicable codes to determine what is allowed on each branch, however, can get tricky. In typical
When designing plumbing systems in psychiatric facilities certain considerations must be made that differ from typical plumbing design. For an inpatient facility, the first step is to refer to the most recent edition of the Facility Guidelines Institute (FGI) Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospitals. Within these guidelines is a section dedicated to the
If you are responsible for archival storage you may find yourself faced with a mountain of questions and a shortage of answers. Historical items that we deem most valuable are often the most fragile and susceptible to deterioration over time. Items such as books, video, film, paintings, furniture, and metals are all sensitive to the
Over the past ten years, LED products have taken the lighting world by storm. They are flooding the market, but not all of them stack up. This is true especially when it comes to their ability to mitigate electromagnetic interference. Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) is often referred to as ‘static’. It is a disturbance to an
With longer days and warmer temperatures, the chill of winter is behind us this time of year. While your HVAC system heating performance is likely not on your mind right now; this is the time to consider any changes your heating coils need in order to work next winter. Like the people who use them,
When evaluating the design criteria for an electrical distribution system in a facility of significant magnitude, vast complexity, or of critical operations, such as a hospital, a centralized uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system backed up by the emergency standby power source should be considered. There are numerous benefits associated with utilizing a central UPS system
Central utility plants are traditionally used in campus settings to generate and distribute steam to multiple buildings. While central steam plants are an effective way to provide heat for a campus layout, these plants are also complex and can be expensive to operate. Some owners are finding that investing in and employing advanced steam plant
