Unocal Geothermal Division Headquarters
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Unocal Geothermal Division Headquarters
Location: Santa Rosa, CA
Architect: Roland Miller Associates
Photography: Tom Rider
This beautifully designed 70,000 square foot office building was awarded the coveted State of California Building Energy Efficiency Award, in part for the building-wide 'daylight harvesting' system and its dimming and control system, which was custom-designed for the project by our lighting design team. While it may be less unusual today, at the time it represented the absolute cutting-edge of 'sustainable' building design. The automatic daylight harvesting lighting controls were fully integrated with the sophisticated system of exterior building architectural sun-shade shelves, which redirected the substantial daylight that enters the building along the perimeter up onto the interior office ceilings, providing high levels of indirect ambient illumination deep into these perimeter interior spaces. The re-directed daylight activates the automated electric lighting/dimming system via a new, developed-for-the-project, ceiling-recessed photocell. The substantial daylight thus 'harvested' allowed the entire system to very quickly pay for itself in utility cost savings.
The building was also designed to serve as the Corporate Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center. Therefore, extensive power backup systems were included to allow all critical building systems to remain in full operation, even following an 8.0 level earthquake. State-of-the-art, redundant, uninterruptible power systems, and unique approaches to the design of power, communication and computer cable distribution via cable tray, along with an innovative method of computer systems grounding, were also included in the design. Full emergency generator backup power was provided for the entire building, ensuring the continued operation of this critical facility under even the worst natural emergency conditions.
Award of Excellence, Building Energy Efficiency
California Building Officials, State of California