Top-Notch Transfer

by Jonathan McGaha | July 31, 2013 12:00 am

Completed in May 2012, the 106,928-square-foot South Seattle Transfer and Recycling Station, in Seattle, features a metal building, roof and wall panels from American Buildings Co., Eufaula, Ala. Located on a 9-acre site, the facility is made up of the transfer facility, associated scale houses and an administrative building. The transfer and recycling station serves both the public and commercial haulers, providing a space to bring refuse to prior to it being transferred to a recycling facility, compositing facility or landfill.

 

The primary goal, Sian Roberts, partner, The Miller Hull Partnership, Seattle, explains, was to create a flexible, functional, efficient and safe building for transfer of waste from private and commercial vehicles into compactors and then to move those trailers off-site. “As a public facility near a residential area, it was also important that the facility be a good fit and a community amenity, both aesthetically and functionally,” she adds.

 

Designed to meet LEED Gold certification, the state-of-the-art facility’s unique design incorporated two bypass tunnels under the buildings’ tipping floor to allow for the efficient loading and removal of debris from the main tipping floor. To allow filtered light into the structure’s main tipping floor, the exterior shell was designed with four different types of Poly and translucent products from CPI Daylighting, Lake Forest, Ill. “Daylight is vital for operator and public safety in this publicly accessible industrial facility,” Roberts says. “It was critical that there was abundant natural light and no glare. A variety of translucent panel types were used to create an even, diffused daylighting scheme. On clear or overcast days, the facility has been designed to operate safely without supplemental electric lighting.”

 

American Buildings supplied its Rigid Frame metal building system, along with Architectural III and Longspan III metal wall panels in Regal White and Slate Gray, respectively, and its Standing Seam 360 metal roof panels in Slate Gray. The building spans 135 feet to a center rafter that reaches 57 feet in the air to support the 20-foot-tall by 40-foot-wide single-slope spine structure. The spine is accessed via a custom manufactured catwalk system. Eight large mechanical fans are located in the sidewall of the spine structure to allow for 100 percent air transfer every 30 minutes within the facility. According to Roberts, a pre-engineered metal building gave the client the most cost-effective solution for creating a flexible, long span structure where trucks can maneuver easily.

 

Additionally, the facility features a street sign wall composed of former street signs, recycled from south end Seattle streets, while sections from the old South Park Bridge were used as art on-site.

 

South Seattle Transfer and Recycling Station, Seattle

Award: Building of the Year in American Buildings Co.’s 2013 Excellence in Design Awards

Architect:
The Miller Hull Partnership[1], Seattle, and URS Corp.[2], New York City

General contractor: Mortenson Construction[3], Minneapolis

Builder/metal installer: PHI Construction Inc.[4], Portland, Ore.

Daylighting: CPI Daylighting, Lake Forest, Ill., www.cpidaylighting.com[5]

Metal building, roof and wall panels: American Buildings Co., Eufaula, Ala., www.americanbuildings.com[6]

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/top-notch-transfer/

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