The Jefferson County Sheriff's Building is a new 7,800 s.f. facility co-located with the county's existing jail/dispatch/emergency operations facility. This project also included renovation of the dispatch and emergency operations portions of the existing facility.

A sloped roof was implemented using engineered wood trusses to create a vaulted structure, allowing increased space volume at offices and circulation spaces around the perimeter and creating infrastructure space for systems and equipment in the center of the building. The result is an improved environment in the occupied spaces, and systems that are protected and easily maintainable without reducing valuable square footage of the occupied space.

Mechanical Highlights

The owner expressed a desire for systems that were reliable and consistent, but that also made use of natural ventilation and cooling both for energy savings and to allow the building to better communicate with the surrounding natural environment. The following items were incorporated into the design to meet the owner's needs:

• Base HVAC systems similar to those already in-place in the adjacent facility were implemented (for ease of maintenance) to meet the owner's need for strict temperature control.
• High bay areas with roof monitors were incorporated into the circulation pathway to allow a natural path for airflow.
• Systems were exposed in occupied spaces to allow increased space volumes.
• Air transfers allowing natural airflow through offices were provided with acoustical treatments to maintain necessary privacy.
• A simple monitoring and control approach was implemented involving window sensors at strategic locations, automatic dampers at roof monitors and coordination with HVAC systems. This allowed:
• Occupants to have the freedom to open and close windows
• The HVAC system to react, eliminating wasted energy
• The ability to provide either a natural or strictly-controlled environment, depending on the desire of the occupant, with no required interface by the occupant with the HVAC system.

 *Historic projects were performed by Inventrix Principal staff at previous employment.  Inventrix staff may or may not have been the stamping engineer, depending on the project.