Signature Engineering

Signature Engineering receives award for housing project!

Joshua — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:16:34 +0000

Signature Engineering was awarded for the best multi-family residential project of 2011 for our work on The Landings at Nellis Air Force Base in North Las Vegas, Nevada by ENR Southwest. The Landings at Nellis started just over four years ago and reached completion in 2011.

A small section of the HVAC plan for The Landing at Nellis

For this project, Signature Engineering contributed the mechanical and plumbing design for multi-family military housing. See the entire article on ENR Southwest’s website.

Turn Wastewater Into Power

Joshua — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 22:53:58 +0000

An experiment to transform wastewater sludge into electrical power is being successfully tested at a Nevada wastewater treatment plant. Researchers say the immediate goal is to produce enough power on site to meet the plant’s electrical needs. The beauty of this process is that it’s being designed to be all on-site, saving trucking costs and disposal fees for the sludge. The system uses waste heat from the process to drive the electrical generation. Estimates show a full-scale system has the potential to generate 25,000 kilowatt-hours per day to help power the local reclamation facility.

High Efficient Reflective Windows: Where Does the Energy Go?

Joshua — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:19:25 +0000

The change to green technology has new design considerations. The move from more traditional glazing to high efficient reflective windows have been damaging landscapes and adjacent buildings throughout the country. Damage ranges from burnt landscaping, melted siding and intense sun burns. The Vdara Hotel, designed by Rafael Viñoly’s high profile New York architecture firm, achieved a LEED® Gold certification from the US Green Building Council. It incorporates high efficient window technologies. The tower has an extruded crescent-shaped — combined with the building’s high performance windows make the Vdara act like a giant parabolic reflector, focusing solar heat into what hotel employees are now calling “the Vdara death ray.” The building’s concave south-facing wall basically acts like a giant lens…creating the same phenomena that allows you to start a fire with a magnifying glass, but on a much larger scale. Unfortunately, the Vdara’s concentrated heat hits the ground where the hotel’s pool happens to be located.

Guests have complained about burnt hair and melted plastic cups. The solution at this time is to provide umbrellas to the guests that are effected. This phenomenon is not only happening in Las Vegas but here in Boise. As new green products are introduced, building designs will need to consider the effect on the overall surrounding environment. The energy that is reflected away from buildings by efficient windows will need to be considered similarly to water that flows off of sites. What other design considerations should we be looking at as we design with green technologies in the future?