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Prime consultant: PAE Consulting Engineers
Client/Owner: LOTT Clean Water Alliance
Other Consultants: 33Design, AHBL, Aldrich Pears, BRC Acoustics, John Korsmo Construction, Johnson/Southerland, Miller Hull Partnership, Murase Associates

The LOTT Administrative Educational Center and Water Quality Lab in Olympia, Wash., is a building that does more with less. Even without a boiler, a cooler tower or a geothermal field, the 33,000-square-foot building manages to heat and cool itself.

The secret lies in an innovative HVAC system designed by PAE Consulting Engineers that taps into a low-temperature water loop to create a source of hot water. When coupled with a series of operable exterior blinds that keep heat in during the winter while blocking out solar radiation in the summer, the end result is a complete system capable of providing all of the building’s heating and cooling needs.

Innovation doesn’t always come easily, however. Because the city of Olympia didn’t have a plumbing code that allowed using reclaimed water to service water closets, PAE designed a reclaimed water distribution system with a potable water back-up. The firm also took a lead role in helping city officials better understand how reclaimed water can be safely and effectively used.

PAE also had a hand in working out a system to optimize lighting and daylighting for the project. PAE engineers and designers from the firm’s lighting design division, Luma Lighting Design, came up with the idea to add sub-metering on a main distribution panel and provide a monitoring system.

That system along with new skylights in the administration building and refurbished skylights in the laboratory will help “maintain the building’s low energy use through the years,” Eric Hielema, a senior wastewater engineer with LOTT Clean Water Alliance, wrote in a letter recommending PAE receive an ACEC award for engineering excellence.