A Building within a Building

by Jonathan McGaha | October 31, 2016 12:00 am

New animal shelter highlights shelter medicine best practices

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Throughout the nation, there is a need to improve or replace outdated and unsafe animal shelters. Unfortunately, many communities have little funding to do this. In Tracy, Calif., the new Tracy Animal Shelter replaced an outdated shelter, and is designed around shelter medicine best practices.

Completed in March 2015, the Tracy Animal Shelter was designed by INDIGO | Hammond & Playle Architects LLP[2] (Indigo), Davis, Calif. “The Tracy Animal Shelter example demonstrates that metal construction has an important role to play in providing affordable new shelters, which when designed using the latest in shelter medicine best practices, can dramatically improve the care of animals in the United States,” says Candace Harrison, AIA, project architect at Indigo.

The new shelter was built on a limited budget with a quick timeframe. To meet these goals, Harrison says the firm developed an innovative concept based on pre-engineered building technology with standardized construction components resulting in 15 percent less construction cost and built 25 percent faster than conventional construction methods. “Savings in the building envelope went directly into enhanced program elements for animal care,” Harrison says.

 

Best Practices

Indigo is first in the country to focus on implementing shelter medicine best practices through a collaboration with the University of California, Davis[3], Koret Shelter Medicine Program[4] (KSMP). Working together in the early stages of programming allowed shelter medicine best practices to be fully integrated into the design of the shelter from the start. “Working with KSMP also ensured the facility was right-sized, avoiding excessive capacity which can lead to increased daily operational costs, increased length of stay and increased risk for illness and confinement related behavioral disorders,” Harrison explains.

The Tracy Animal Shelter implements two key shelter medicine best practices. First, it provides quality animal care housing for the short time animals are held there. These include double-compartment housing for cats and indoor/outdoor kennels for dogs. “These are proven healthy housing types, which reduce stress, improve health and increase positive outcomes for animals,” Harrison says.

Secondly, the shelter is designed to reduce an animal’s length of stay in order to move animals through the shelter quickly. “The colorful metal building design addresses this by providing a fresh new look for the community, attractive to the public adopter,” Harrison adds. “Thus the family-friendly look and feel encourages visitation.”

 

A Community Destination

To attract the public and become a destination for the community, the new shelter needed to be embracing and inviting. The designers accomplished this through the use of color, playful building massing, and welcoming indoor and outdoor spaces. “The innovative architectural expression combined with color and graphic signage creates excitement and interest, key elements in attracting the public visitor to the shelter,” Harrison explains. “The shelter is welcoming, dynamic and fun. Once inside, an attractive lobby area allows easy access to the animal adoption areas.”

Designed as a building within a building, the shelter was built over a period of eight months. The design consists of two main elements: a 9,400-square-foot pre-engineered metal building built over a 5,700-square-foot stick-framed box on slab below, which houses all shelter functions.

“The biggest challenge for the design team was to provide high-quality animal environments within a very limited budget, without sacrificing animal care and completed on a very aggressive schedule,” explains Harrison. “To accomplish this, it was necessary to find a building type which could save time and money at the same time allowing for creative expression. An innovative construction delivery method was developed using pre-manufactured building technology combined with standardized construction methods, which allowed the shelter to be built more quickly and at a substantially lower cost than other conventional shelters.”

 

Innovative Building Concepts

A metal building system from CBC Steel Buildings[5], Lathrop, Calif., was chosen for the project for its durability and low maintenance. Additionally, Metal Sales Manufacturing Corp.[6], Louisville, Ky., supplied its 24-gauge standing seam pre-finished metal roofing panels in Champagne for the project.

The stick-framed box with uniform 10-foot-high walls was built around dog kennels that had been shotcreted in place. While this was underway, Harrison explains, the pre-engineered metal building frame with roof was being made in a factory, saving time and money. “When craned into place, it covers not only the stick-framed box, but also provides cover for exterior circulation space and the outdoor portion of the double-sided dog kennels, a key animal health feature,” Harrison says.

The area between the two parts is closed off with metal panels, which forms an interstitial space ideal for running services and ductwork throughout the shelter. “This schema also provided all outdoor kennels with shade and weather protection,” she adds, “which was critical to achieving shelter medicine best practices.”

 

Sustainable Features

The Tracy Animal Shelter includes a variety of sustainable features such as natural daylighting and ventilation in all animal housing areas, high-efficiency mechanical systems that use evaporative cooling, and LED light fixtures, including a daylight control system. “The all-LED lighting system is controlled so lights are off most of the time,” she says, “saving 20 percent on electricity usage.”

One challenge was figuring out how to build a state-of-the-art daylighting system into a pre-engineered metal building. As Harrison explains, an innovative detail was used to support the tubular skylights from Solatube International Inc.[7], Vista, Calif., which are placed in the spanning metal roof panels. “Thirty, 21-inch round skylights are supported between Z-purlins, allowing the skylights to ‘ride’ with the metal roof panels as they thermally expand and contract,” she explains. “The skylights provide daylight to all animal areas and are instrumental in maintaining a healthy environment for the animals housed within.”

Future Growth

The simple rectangular form of the building and the regular pre-engineered frame spacing allows for future linear growth of the building. The site master plan allows for thoughtful future growth, part of which includes using a steel entry trellis to connect future phases of the project and a large open area left undeveloped to allow for reduced initial site development costs. The master plan also shows future expansion of the dog exercise yards, dog walking trails and an agility yard.

With a $3.8 million budget, phase one included cat and dog housing designed with flexibility to meet adoption and other holding needs, minimal administrative areas, animal support areas and a secure vehicle sallyport for safely transferring animals. When the 6,000-square-foot phase two is built, Harrison says it will consist of a large multipurpose room to accommodate community and shelter events. Future phases will add a veterinary clinic and expanded animal housing.

Shelter Medicine Features of the Tracy Animal Shelter Some of the animal health and shelter medicine best practices incorporated into the design include: Safe, humane housing to maximize positive outcomes. Open shelter design maximizes adoption, reduced length of stay. Species separation for low-stress animal housing spaces. Animal choice and enrichment in each enclosure. Double compartment animal housing enclosures. Indoor/outdoor dog kennels. Urethane-coated shotcrete kennels with integral coved base for hygenic cleaning and disease control. Separate ventilation systems for each animal area for odor control and animal health. Acoustic control in kennels with the use of sound absorption panels and with a unique angled kennel layout. Daylighting to all animal areas. Central cleaning system. Separate quarantine and isolation/flex wards. Individual waste plumbing for each kennel to prevent cross-contamination.

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/a-building-within-a-building/

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