Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Engaging the desert “wisdom” to address the county’s constrained budget, DLR Group has succeeded in designing a new office building that is characterized as a beacon to the community while accommodating the needs of 144 attorneys and staff members.
The DLR Group design team researched four site options in predesign to ensure that the building location, shape, and size not only met functional planning requirements but also considered cost savings through life-cycle analysis.
Annual daylighting and energy analysis on the four iterations varied from 60,000-to-70,000 square feet over five floors.
The interior offices eliminated high-partition cubicles that restricted light through the spaces, used sliding glass barn doors to maximize daylight, and eliminated door swings creating a narrower building.
The final design came in at 56,000 square feet, reducing the footprint and floor-to-floor dimension.
The integrated design process tasked the engineering team to deliver 90%–complete design documents during the design development phase to cut the footprint down to its bare minimum.
This building brought in specific elements of design that contribute to occupant comfort and the workplace experience.
The profuse daylighting extends into the building core reducing the need to turn on lights.
The interior also created areas of respite on each floor, including a café, a coffee bar on the first floor, and an outdoor balcony on the fifth floor.
Restrooms look and feel like a hotel spa with a Zen quality of aesthetics. And, at each individual workspace, ergonomic desks are height adjustable.
Biomimicry replicates nature’s forms, processes, and ecosystems to create designs that affect the way a building functions.
The design team learned that the saguaro cactus protects itself and thrives in the intense desert heat due to its continuous self-shading vertical fins which redistribute heat, preventing any one area of the cactus skin from overheating.
Creating a 3D computer-generated model of a saguaro cactus, and a daylighting simulation model confirmed that no part of the plant received more than 15 to 20 minutes of direct sun at any one time, avoiding the possibility of sunburn.
Project: Pinal County Attorney’s Offices
Architects: DLR Group
Lead Architect: Hans Papke
General Contractor: FCI Constructors, Inc.
Client: Pinal County Facilities Management
Photographers: Matt Winquist Photography
