LADWP Hoover Yard
2020 Sustainable Innovation Awards
Resilience
The LADWP commits to meet the ambitious goals set forth in LA’s Green New Deal. The 93,500sf building on an EPA clean-up/brownfield site replaces a dilapidated street lighting facility with an optimized yard including a mixed-use building housing Management & Crew Workplace, Community/Training Room, Break Room, Lockers & Gym, Warehouse, Fleet Maintenance and Parking at the scale necessary to relieve the overcrowding at downtown yards and improve service.
The Hoover Yard is an essential services facility designed to survive the “Big One” and get to work restoring power for the City ofLos Angeles. Resilience is key. After a disaster, the Yard will become a 24/7 Emergency Response Center with capacity to operate for 3 days without outside resources – including the conversion of rooms to dormitories to support 24/7 shifts. Key strategies include planning to submit for the new Resiliency Certification that addresses seismic design in a manner similar to LEED certification and the use of innovative Dura fuse bolted moment frames that concentrate future damage in replaceable plates with continuous occupancy of the building.
The design will achieve NZEnergy for an all-electric, industrial facility with high plug loads. Combining passive and active strategies(thermal mass, daylighting, hybrid natural and displacement air systems) significantly reduces the EUI. Given the tight urban site, the project was only able to achieve 105% of the modeled building EUI by using high performance panels and extending them over the roof top mechanical equipment. Conserving potable water is also key to the Green New Deal. Grey Water treatment and other water conservation strategies reduce potable water use by over 50% and provides for 100% of the landscape water use. The off-site pollution from a long demolished dry cleaner contaminating the ground water will also be remediated.
The vitality of the community and the staff are key to the design. Community benefits include a shared Training/Meeting Room with an outdoor patio, generous additions of street trees above code mandate and massing to protect the nearby residential neighbors from the yard noise and fleet traffic.
The staff experience is uplifted with views and access to a landscaped roof deck, high quality daylighting, attractive stairs and a gym, healthy material specifications and configuration of the yard to optimize safety.