The new county building houses departments in the main four-story building plus an attached, one-story circular structure hosting county supervisor meetings and other public events. Among the design elements that aims to reduce the cost of operating the building is a raised floor that helps to reduce the cost of regulating the building temperature.
David Hobstetter, a principal at KMD, explains that the raised floor enables the building to take advantage of the region's cool climate. First, the hollow spaces circulate lower-temperature night air that is absorbed into the concrete floors and mass of the building. Additionally, the raised floors contain the building's electrical, plumbing and other conduit systems, creating a more efficient use of space.
The raised floor and other design features of the new government center "helped the building beat the state's energy-efficiency requirements by 30%," according to Hobstetter. Mark Redmond of Ted Jacobs Engineering notes that the raised floor employs the same principle as historic Mission adobe buildings whose mass cooled overnight for the benefit of occupants during the day.
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