French American School
Additional Info
Award Winner : Pacific Mobile Structures, Inc.
Architectural Excellence : This new two-story school addition was added to the first-story of French American’s existing school in Seattle, Washington. Weinstein Architects A/U was contracted to design the new addition, and worked with Tornberg Consulting, to handle engineering required for remodeling, adding an elevator and stairwells, and all required internal building supports. The new structure featured a low-slope rubber membrane roof with mansard, painted metal exterior window awnings, painted smooth hardi-board siding, 1”x2” wood slats added for ascetic purposes, and roof-mounted electric heat-pumps. The interior of the building was designed with 8’ T-grid ceilings, painted sheetrock and tack-board interior walls, 1/8” block tile flooring with 26 nylon carpeting, and painted wood interior doors and window trims.
Cost Energy Effectiveness : The design concept allowed the owner the ability to stage the expansion over two phases. Since there was limited space on site, they were not able to have a phase II that consisted of an additional structure adjacent to phase I. The solution was to pre-engineer the phase I single story building to be able to accept a second story in the future. The result was a build-out that met their financial requirements as well as their space constraints. The energy efficient features of the building included 10 SEER roof mounted heat pumps zoned for maximum heating and cooling efficiency; a Honeywell T800 electronic programmable t-stat interlocked to prevent simultaneous heating and cooling per zone, economizers to modulate outside air from a minimum to 100% per WESD; greenheck exhaust fans with time clock controls, dual glazed windows with low “E” glass (U factor .050 NFRC).
Design Firm Name : Whitley Evergreen
Occupied Date : 8/28/2008
Production Start Date : 4/16/2008
Project Location City : Mercer Island
Project Location State Name : WA
Technical Innovation : Due to the fact the school was in session until mid-June, there was only 10 weeks to install the entire new second story addition, as well as do all of the required retrofitting of the first story. For this reason, a substantial portion of the foundation work, mansard removal, elevator pit, and interior work was done ahead of time (over the holidays, spring break, and on weekends), to meet the tight time-line. This limited the interference with the students and staff, while achieving the items necessary, prior to installation. Modular construction was the only option that gave the owner the ability to expand their school over 15,000 square feet with no disruption in classes.
Total Square Feet : 15400