The California Independent System Operator 
Corp. is responsible for the management of the California electrical grid. This mission puts them squarely in the high-profile tech arena and requires a very sophisticated data center. It also forced two goals when the non-profit built a new headquarter building in Folsom, Calif.: first to educate the public about energy consumption and second to attract workers in the very competitive tech sector.
Kristopher Barkley, design director at Dreyfuss & Blackford Architects, Sacramento, Calif., responded to those needs with a building that comprises three parts: a dynamic public space, an enticing office environment and an efficient mission critical data center. The three wings of the California ISO headquarters house each element and work in concert to deliver on its mission.
“They have 750 employees in the tech business,” says Barkley. “But it’s not as exciting as Google or Yahoo, so they wanted to create an atmosphere to become an employer of choice.” The building helps fulfill that goal.
The California ISO headquarters is situated on a rolling expanse of land outside Sacramento, Calif., and designed to fit in naturally among the native vegetation, which includes native oak trees. It also was designed to achieve LEED Platinum status, and through careful use of daylighting, solar energy, water conservation, material choice and other decisions, it has been certified.
The Public Wing
A building has to do more than just be sustainable to attract tech workers, though. It has to have a contemporary feel, and the use of metal panels from CENTRIA, Moon Township, Pa., provide the contemporary look. The silver shades and blend of smooth and profiled panels offer texture and sophistication that speak to the youthfulness of the tech sector, which was a concern since the average age of workers at California ISO far exceeds that average age of workers in the California tech sector. Most of the metal panel work appears on the public wing, which
includes conference rooms, food service and an open dining area.
The public spaces open to an outdoor area where workers can gather. The use of metal and glass breaks down the barrier between the indoors and outdoors. “We tried to create a place with a lot of natural daylight, was very dynamic and exciting atmosphere, bringing the outside in,” says Barkley. “And we also created spaces where workers can escape the entire building and still be within the security envelope of the property.”
One side of the public wing faces west, so Barkley employed a stainless steel metal mesh from GKD Metal Fabrics, Cambridge, Md., to shade about 50 percent of the glass and still allow diffused light to enter. “It’s become a very popular spot,” Barkley says.
The Office Wing and the Data Center 
The office wing of the building is a three-story, glass structure that provides ample daylight for workers. “We were most concerned about daylighting in the office wing,” says Barkley. “It has the higher number of people. And we were concerned not only about the energy savings there, but the feeling of the environment. We kept the building width fairly narrow and it’s aligned so that it is on a north-south axis with the primary faces of the building. On the north side, we maximized the glass to bring in the diffused natural light, which doesn’t have much energy consequence if you do that. And on the south side, we used the sunshades to control the light coming in. Also, they reflect light up into the ceiling areas of interior spaces.” The sunshades on the public wing were manufactured by C.R. Laurence Co., Los Angeles, and the sunshades on the office wing were custom designed by Royal Glass Co., Rancho Cardova, Calif.
The heart of the building is the data center. It’s a one-story wing, which angles off to the southwest from the central lobby. Because it requires a more secure environment, it stands more separate from the other areas of the building to control access. The roof of the data center provides the platform for one of the solar arrays, which deliver 750 kilowatts of energy and offset about 20 percent of the building’s energy consumption.
The company was, understandably, very focused on the operation center, since that is the primary mission. “We delivered a lot more than they were expecting,” Barkley says. “They were very pleasantly surprised at what they got.”