University of Utah

The Donna Garff Marriott Honors Residential Scholars Community Salt Lake City, Utah

WHW Engineering, Inc. was the mechanical engineer consultant to the project Architect, Jacoby Architects and Gramoll Construction as the Design Build General Contractor. The Honors Student Housing project is approximately 164,000 square feet. The five story building is a mixed use facility. It supports a portion of the Honors College with classrooms and administrative areas; it includes a lobby with café and gathering spaces, a laundry facility, and multiple different housing layouts.

The building has been designed incorporating sustainable design measures and meets the State of Utah High Performance Building Rating System of a LEED Silver rating. The mechanical system for this building is a 4 pipe system, with VAV reheat in the College and common areas, with 4 pipe fan coil units in the residential areas. The energy efficiency model is 34% better than code. In addition to energy efficiency, the mechanical equipment was designed to be maintenance friendly, sound sensitive, and long lasting.

As part of the design communication and coordination process, the mechanical and plumbing systems were completely designed and drafted using Revit. This has produced a quality coordination model of all mechanical and plumbing systems which proved valuable in maximizing floor space of mechanical areas. The system has been designed and constructed in a way that allows good service access, without wasting valuable floor space.

In addition to the standard of care that was taken to meet the needs of the State of Utah and University of Utah Design Standards, additional mechanical design considerations were included to meet an aggressive design build budget and schedule, while maintaining the quality of system for the long term value of the building. These needs were balanced to provide a quality final product, while maintaining the project budget.