County of San Diego Southeastern Live Well Center
San Diego
Project of the year
Region: Enr California
Sent by: PCL construction
Owner: San Diego County
Lead design company: Steinberg Hart
General contractor: PCL construction
Civil Engineer: Michael Baker International
MEP engineers: Glumac; ELEN CONSULTING
Construction Manager: Project Management Advisors Inc.
Before construction even began at the Well Well center of $ 63.5 million in San Diego County, it had already become evident for the project owner, the builder and the architect who there was only one way to successfully deliver this project for the diverse socioeconomic community and disassociated from Southeast of San Diego, which would serve: with a deep and significant involvement of the members of the community in all details. After all, according to a member of the project team team team, “the community was in our business throughout the process.”
The photovoltaic solar panels helped the building to reach its net-zero-energy rating.
Photo by Kristen Ridgers, PCL construction project engineer
This personal interaction and the connection of the resulting community would be all the good – and glory -, as representatives of the County of San Diego, the design firm of PCL and the design of contractor design, Steinberg Hart, shows it in terms of the process of creating and delivery of the Center for Energy Services clean of 65,000 square meters in a center of the community.
This successful approach also won the Southeastern Live Well Center awards as a project of the year 2024 by Enr.
Before construction, however, a County budget crisis would require reduction in Live Well’s center and the cost of cutting from original $ 72 million to the final budget.
Here, the team’s nascent community connections were useful for their final success, as local citizens who served the project’s technical advisory advice committee provided comments and reviewed and approved the necessary design changes.
Photography Hill Photography Photo
The central design of the building’s design was a focus on functions, such as brilliantly illuminated expansive spaces through skylights and glass outside, which would help users to increase security, confidence, well -being, healing and privacy.
This emphasis on trauma-informed design, which is influenced by studies that report that about 70% of Americans have experienced some kind of trauma, would guide much of the architect’s efforts, says Lina Asad, Senior Senior Project Design by Steinberg Hart.
The county “wanted to really think through the design principles of the trauma -informed design, and this has shaped and remodeled the building,” says Asad.
Start
Photography Hill Photography Photo
Delivering a vision
The focus of San Diego County in delivering a prominent installation was derived from its recognition that this community had been unpleasant and even neglected. “There was a lot of initial distrust of the county,” admits Marko Medved, director of General Services with San Diego County.
To create confidence, the county pledged to ensure that members of the community would bring contributions in all areas. This included the selection of the exact location of the installation, the solving problems of the project site, the hiring of contractors, the influence and the approval of the design, and even providing all the works of omnipresent art of the center, adorning both its interiors and the interiors.
“We should be true to our word about what was at the end and its operation,” adds Medved. “It was like a great deal of confidence creation with the community.”
With the community “undervalued and is not very confident … It needed a lot of work and a lot of participation in the community,” adds Steve Schmidt, the Deputy Director of General Services of the Capital County before withdrawing last July.
Essentially, says Schmidt, the county wanted to know: “How will you bring local companies to the project and what are you willing to put at risk that you will achieve these goals? This was a new thing for us and was certainly one of the great factors of how we chose the team (PCL-Steinberg Hart). “”
To this end, the application for the county for design construction equipment included a component, which included 25% of the score of each entity, demanding the bidders that would detail how they would involve companies located in certain local subsequent codes. It is important to note that this component would be scored by the Technical Advisory Committee of the project, which included members of the local community.
Photography Hill Photography Photo
“The design design team pledged to $ 6 million with local contractors of postal codes around this building, and ended up spending more than $ 8 million,” says Medved. The design construction team exceeded its requirement to hire at least 5% of the project labor locally, close to tripling this goal with a final rate of almost 14%.
The PCL-Steinberg Hart team has just left the park, “adds Medved. Hitting this proverbial Home Run required the PCL-Steinberg Hart team to develop a mentality of involving the largest number of community residents and local companies, regardless of size.
Says Pramodh Reddy, PCL Construction Senior Project Manager, “This could be a [project] This had a budget and before the calendar, but if the community did not feel valued, it would have been a failure. “”
Instead, “we also set the goal of hiring as many local companies as we can, even if it is a $ 10,000 contract [or] A contract of $ 30,000, “he adds. “The scale may not be applied to know what we will say were the criteria, but he encountered the intention, which guarantees that the people of the community feel like they were part of the work.”
Well illuminated hallways, abundant art works, a meditation garden and an open -scale parking garage reflect a trauma -influenced design.
Mike Torrey Photography photo
To this end, PCL read a “ huge database of potential sellers we could use … of sellers, subcontractors, any kind of small mother and pop stores that we could raise during the construction of the project, ” says Reddy, who added that the team held “ at least 10 and 12 outreach meetings specifically for local businesses and increase the participation of local workers ”.
Challenging this goal was that only a local DBE structural steel subcontractor – who had never worked before, was within the specified postal codes.
To this end, PCL facilitated the training of the subcontractor by organizing a training program in collaboration with the Association of Black Contractors and the General Associated Contractors. “This proactive support stated that the subcontractor could fulfill the quality standards of the project and obtain the owner’s qualification,” PCL said in his presentation to Enr.
A mural solar protection of two parts of Doris Bittar outside the building honors the culture of the historic district of San Diego.
Mike Torrey Photography photo
Achieve a positive end result
Completed under budget and before the calendar of July 2023, the completely net electric and clean energy installation, which also obtained a ratification of Leed Gold, was designed to compensate at least 110% of energy consumption by renewables.
Another regional objective was for the center to exceed the requirements of the California Energy Code, which the installation manages to achieve 15% better than the initial performance. The elements that help this objective include photovoltaic solar panels, energy efficient glass, functional solar filters and the strategic use of recycled materials to minimize environmental impacts, according to the project team.
One of the final questions for the architecture team was: “How can the interior of the building feel safe and safe?”, Asad says.
As much as the team focused on energy efficiency, another goal was to deliver a “warm and cozy, safe and safe building,” adds Asad. In addition to swimming the building with natural light, the architect used warm colors throughout the interior of the installation.
“It was really intentional,” he says. “Even the color of the stairs is designed to be warm instead of fresh and institutional.”
Above all, the choice of the body’s outer floor color came from a community meeting, where a local citizen suggested it, and all present, according to Asad. In addition, art abounds along the exterior of the building and all its interior, with more than 50 pieces in total, all made by approximately 30 members of the local community.
“The depth of public commitment in this [project] It was something he had never seen or experienced before, “says Asad. Ultimately, the owner accredited” soft things “for the general success of the project.
“When difficult things work, it’s usually because you have gentle things right,” he says. “Choose the right team, set the right goals, get the right environment and give people the support they need. I think that’s why it worked.”
