Delta Products Corp., a global leader in power and thermal solutions, recently made the move to its new Americas headquarters, located in Fremont, Calif. The company, which serves a wide range of industries from renewable energy and lighting to industrial automation and IT, has 80,000 employees worldwide and was expected to exceed $8 billion in sales in 2015.
Opened in October 2015, the state-of-the-art facility was designed and built to meet LEED Platinum certification and net zero standards, and serves as a testament to the company’s commitment to sustainability and the Americas market. The new building houses everything from the data center that handles operations for the Americas region, to administration, HR, legal, finance and more. It also serves as the home base for both the Americas and West Coast operations, with numerous sales and engineering staff working to support customers.
Designed by J.J. Pan & Partners, Taipei, with Korth Sunseri Hagey Architects (KSHA), San Francisco, as the executive architect, and built by general contractor Vance Brown Builders, Palo Alto, Calif., the 180,000-square-foot facility is made up of three buildings: a three-story office building, a central link building that includes the lobby and a round, multipurpose auditorium, and the south building, which is a 38,000-square-foot warehouse. Located on 15.5 acres, the project uses many of Delta’s own products.
Sustainable Building
Building highly efficient, sustainable buildings isn’t new to Delta. Since 2005, all of Delta’s new buildings around the world have been built to highly sustainable standards. In the past 10 years, that has included the construction and renovation of 21 green buildings, according to Bruce Cheng, founder and honorary chairman of Delta.
“It’s in Delta’s core philosophy of trying to make the most energy-efficient power supplies and thermal management,” explains Mike Gazzano, marketing manager for Delta. “We know that the energy consumption, within both electronic devices and also into bigger, office buildings are major consumers of electricity.”
When Delta started to outgrow its previous facility, Gazzano says it was no question that they were going to build a green building. “By the time we looked into everything and what we could do to also try and implement as many of Delta’s own products and solutions into the building, it quickly rose in our goal to achieve the highest we could for a LEED building,” he explains. “To go after LEED Platinum status and then with the ultimate goal of being a net zero building, with the amount of solar installations on the roof.”
“Every new Delta building is a green building,” says M.S. Huang, president, Delta Americas. “We maintain an internal directive to only abide by the latest green standards, and with the new Fremont headquarters, our goal is to be net zero. We’ve incorporated our most innovative products to ensure that the Delta Americas Headquarters becomes a model of green building and also a showcase for Delta’s solutions.”
Additionally, Gazzano adds that this facility is Delta’s first to be LEED Platinum certified globally. “We’re very much proud of what we’ve built and now occupy here,” he says.
Building Design
The new headquarters is located on a site that occupies a prominent location and faces a conservation area by the bay. “Given these conditions, the building need not and should not do too much to stand out,” explains J.J. Pan, founding principal of J.J. Pan
& Partners. “So architecturally we kept the massing simple-the offices and warehouses are distinct volumes with the more public lobby and multipurpose hall in the middle.”
Additionally, he notes the sleekness of the approximately 51,822-square-foot high-performance curtainwall from Royal Glass Co. Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., allows for natural lighting and ventilation, while the solid endwalls and large canopy convey an impression of strength and provide shading.
To achieve LEED Platinum certification, the project features a 616 kW rooftop photovoltaic solar system from Delta that spans all three of the building rooftops. Expected to output 1,000 MWh of electricity per year, the system uses Delta’s own inverter technology with more than 28 inverters that harness power and recirculate it back into the building, as well as store energy for peak demands, explains Gazzano.
The facility also features a 140,000-gallon rainwater harvesting system for irrigation, with the uncollected rainwater being directed to a bioswale. The geothermal heating and cooling system uses more than 92 miles of piping to circulate 12,000 gallons of water, significantly reducing the building’s energy requirements while allowing it to rely on on-site renewable energy. The system’s loop field is located 30 feet underground and is the size of five football fields.
Design Details
The project features approximately 32,000 square feet of 4-mm ALPOLIC aluminum composite material (ACM) in BSX Silver Metallic and PEX Pewter from Mitsubishi Plastics Composites America Inc., Chesapeake, Va. The Pewter panels are used as an accent color for the underside of the canopy. “The use of metal panels, with its precision and sleek finish, reinforces the overall high-tech impression of the architectural design,” Pan says.
“We’ve always viewed the underside of the front lobby canopy as an extra elevation to be designed,” says Pan. “Originally, the panels were designed to be perorated panels to allow light through. But once the canopy roof surface was needed for solar panels, we had to revise the design. To preserve the specialness of the canopy, we adopted a triangular panel design with alternating colors to further convey a sense of excitement.”
Gazzano notes the buildings are strategically positioned to allow in as much natural lighting as possible. “The majority of the windows are facing on the north and south sides of the office to allow in as much natural light as we can,” he says. “The building envelope on the east and west sides of the building integrates with the metal application on the outside that creates, essentially, an envelope on either side that will have more direct contact with sunlight.”
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Displaying Delta Products Mike Gazzano, marketing manager for Delta Products, says there were many applications where the company knew it could implement its own products and solutions within the building. “It was very much important to us that we could play an integral part of our green building,” he says, “but at the same time, aside from just the building itself as a showcase, it also helps to promote a valuable resource and testing ground also for our different products and applications and solutions.” These products and solutions include:
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Delta Products Americas Headquarters, Fremont, Calif.
Design architect: J.J. Pan & Partners, Taipei
Executive architect: KSHA Architects, San Francisco
General contractor: Vance Brown Builders, Palo Alto, Calif.
Curtainwall/sunshades: Royal Glass Co. Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., royalglasscoinc.com
Metal wall panels: ALPOLIC by Mitsubishi Plastics Composites America Inc., Chesapeake, Va., www.alpolic-americas.com
Photovoltaics, LED lights, etc.: Delta Products, Fremont, www.delta-americas.com