Cool Customer

UC Davis Health and Wellness Center project aims for LEED gold

By Greg Aragon

McCarthy Building Cos. is nearing completion of the Health and Wellness Center on the UC Davis campus in Davis.

Thanks to a new air-conditioning system, the new $34-million, 75,000-sq-ft Health and Wellness Center at UC Davis is aiming for LEED gold.

“We are using a cutting-edge technology called chilled beam,” says Brian Milman, project architect for San Francisco-based WRNS Studio LLP. “With this system we have been able to beat California Title 24 (energy efficiency standards for buildings) by 44%, a huge number.”

Built to meet increasing enrollment demands at the school, the three-story facility will provide primary, specialty and urgent care, along with diagnostic, mental and preventive services.

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McCarthy Building Cos. Inc. of Sacramento is general contractor, Sacramento based TMCS Inc. is construction manager and WRNS is the primary architect.

Highlights include a living roof, a wellness garden with storm water retention pond and site orientation that allows for solar heat.

Milman says the design takes advantage of the site’s north/south orientation, compensating for heat gain by utilizing small punched windows on the south side, where the sun beats more prominently, and using big glass curtain walls on the north side where the sun is less intrusive. But the project’s biggest green feature is the chilled beams. This technology circulates water through 3-in pipes to chilled radiator-type boxes in office ceilings, where it cools air.

“Water is a much more efficient way of conducting heat and cooling than air,” Milman says. He adds that the use of small pipes for the chilled-beam system has reduced the size of ductwork in the building by about 66%.

The only challenge with using chilled beams was making sure subcontractors were familiar with the technology, says Bill Niemann, McCarthy project director.

The project broke ground in May of last year. Completion is slated for early 2010.