Page 38 - BusinessWest March, 21, 2022

much of the actual construction of River Valley occurring during the height of the pandemic, he noted that the firm made several changes on the fly. The original plan called for a grab-and-go food area that was nixed after contemplating the idea of people touching food in an open area. At the same time, air quality, took on a new urgency.
“In the middle of the project we needed to shift gears and upgrade the HVAC system with more-robust filtering capacities,” Douglas said. “We made these changes to better address the effects of the pandemic.”
The pandemic has brought other changes and adjustments, especially when it comes to needed materials, said those we spoke with, adding that supply chain shortages combined with steady price hikes for building materials and mechanical equipment have become a constant challenge.
Because architects plan projects that won’t break ground until months later, figuring out what materials will be available and what they will cost has become a big ongoing concern. Tier- ney said right now mechanical equipment such as generators are delayed up to 12 months before they are available.
“It’s very unsettling for clients and contractors to not know how long it will take to do a project,” Tierney said. “No one feels confident about cost estimates that are put together today because you don’t know if they will be relevant in three to six months when you actually start construction.”
For this issue and its focus on architecture and engineering, BusinessWest talked with several area architects about the many ways the pandemic has impacted business — and how this sector has responded as it always has, by making adjust- ments and positioning itself effectively for the day
when the storm clouds move out.
Blueprint for Success
It’s called a ‘Zoom booth’ — by some people, anyway.
Like the name suggests, it’s a small space, like a phone booth, only instead of phone calls, it’s for the Zoom meetings that have now become part of day-today life in the modern workplace.
“It’s a place where someone in an open office setting can pop into a quieter space to take part in a remote online meeting,” said Tier- ney, adding that while her firm has included such spaces in many of its plans, it has also converted sev- eral conference rooms to accom- modate meetings where some people attend in-person while others take part virtually.
Zoom booths and altered conference rooms would be among the more subtle changes to the landscape resulting from the pandemic, said those we spoke with, adding that the more dra- matic adjustments, as noted, involve air flow and a recognized need to improve it.
And the amount of work — and redesign — needed generally depends on the age and condi- tion of the building.
Indeed, unlike making a design change in new construction, planning a retrofit with exist- ing buildings brings another level of challenge, said Edgin, citing, as one example, a school cli- ent looking to replace its old rooftop heating unit with an upgraded unit that would add cooling to
Curtis Edgin (left) and James Hanifan say the pandemic has thrown extra layers of complexity into renovations, particularly with HVAC.
the system.
“First we look at structural considerations,
such as whether the building support the new unit if it weighs more than the old one,” Edgin said.
The next step according to James Hanifan, also a principal at Caolo & Bieniek, concerns the duct work in the building.
“Many older facilities don’t have the ventila- tion systems that are required by today’s building codes,” he explained, adding that older buildings
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