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New Era
Images of DMV's San Ysidro
Facility.
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here. |
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Standing in Line, Sustainably
San Ysidro Facility Begins New Era for DMV Offices
From its
inception, the new
Department of Motor Vehicles office in
San Ysidro was
designed against
LEED (Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) standards. By completion, it had exceeded
expectations and attained LEED Gold certification, a symbol of an emerging
green culture within an agency Californians might not associate with
sustainability.
The building, with its dramatically pitched roof and mosaic wall
portraying an abstract of the area’s roadways, opened for business on June
6. Officials from the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the
Department of General Services, along with the architects, electric
utilities and participating organizations, were present at the opening to
celebrate the achievement.
“We are extremely proud of the LEED Gold certification, which is a
landmark for DMV,” said DMV Director George Valverde. “Our absolute goal
is to make it the first of many.”
As part of the ceremony,
San
Diego Gas & Electric jointly presented Louis Stewart, special
advisor to the director of DMV and Will Semmes, chief deputy director of
real estate at DGS, with a $13,815 incentive check as part of the
utility’s Sustainable Communities Program.
Bryan Johnson is the sustainable operations program coordinator at DMV.
It’s unique for a statewide agency to create a position solely devoted to
green initiatives, but Johnson says that Valverde wants the DMV to take a
leadership role in sustainability. “We’re hoping to create a model that
other departments throughout the state can replicate,” Johnson says.
The building’s rooftop solar panels are part of Governor Schwarzenegger’s
Million Solar Roofs Plan. Feeding
directly into the building’s electrical system, they will provide up to
seven percent of its daily energy needs, enough electricity to power two
average-sized homes for a year. As part of DMV’s agreement with SDG&E, the
utility is purchasing the power generated by the building’s photovoltaic
system on weekends when the office is closed, resulting in even more
savings for the DMV.
Green Beginnings
Anney Rosenthal of
Roesling Nakamura Terada Architects
was the assistant project manager for RNT during construction at the San Ysidro DMV office. She notes that
this was her firm’s first LEED project. “No one on the team – not the
architect, the general contractor or our Department of General Services
project director – had ever worked on a LEED project before,” she
recalled.
“At first we were only going for the minimum LEED certification, but when
construction started, we got the word that we were to go for the Silver
rating. We were already designing the building efficiently, we just had to
step it up more. We ended up so close to Gold that DMV and the Department
of General Services told is to go for the three additional points we
needed. Once the contractor, Cox Construction Company, got the bit in
their teeth, they saw it as a great opportunity and worked to keep finding
ways to get points. I don’t think I realized how important it would become
to me to be green. But it’s really exciting to be a part of it now.”
Inside the building, attention to acoustics has resulted in an extremely
low noise level. Sounds are muted, even when the facility is full of
visitors. Other sustainable features include filtered storm water drainage
and low flow and waterless bathroom fixtures. Natural daylighting,
individual air flow and temperature controls at each work station and
exterior views from 90 percent of the occupied rooms in the building all
work to create a healthy and worker-friendly environment.
Fifty percent of all construction waste was diverted, and more than five
percent of the building’s materials contain recycled content. The
building achieves an energy savings of 34 percent greater than
Title 24, the already stringent
California energy code standard.
DMV is currently pursuing a Platinum LEED rating for the San Ysidro office, which will give it the highest recognition possible for
sustainable design.
"The DMV is part of the state green building mandate,” said Will Semmes,
chief deputy director of the California Department of General Services.
“With this building, the agency is leading the way as a face of state
government for the public."
To download a brochure (pdf format)
providing additional details about the San Ysidro facility,
click here.
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