The Mechanical System is an essential part of the schematic understanding of the building.

The solution to air quality and air conditioning must occur during the initial schematic proposals not as an addition to the basic scheme. The location of essential equipment and the strategy for circulating fresh air have an impact on the organization of rooms and the allotment of space to each room. Mechanical noise and unsightly appearance of equipment can also affect the logic and execution of the “form/solution”—the schematic solution to the problem.

Many older schools built after WWII have ceiling mounted air handling units that heat, cool and blow conditioned air around the classroom. Larger spaces had roof top units that were self contained. The inefficiency of so many units seems obvious; however, for long linear buildings with lots of exterior wall surface they were somewhat energy efficient because each room could be controlled for its individual exposure. Sometimes one could link all of the units together with a water circulating system and literally pump heat from the ‘sun’ side of the building to the other side. These systems had to change dramatically when fresh air standards for schools were drastically increased. In order to reduce the spread to illness and to respond to studies that determined that fresh air was essential for a quality education, the ability to fully ‘change’ the air in a room frequently became a requirement.

The fresh air requirement changed the mechanical system from a decentralized one to a centralized one. This means that we need to intake fairly large amounts of outside air, filler it, blow it across coils with either heated or chilled water in them, circulate it to conditioned spaces and exhaust it. In other words throughout the building there will be ductwork that may be exposed or concealed. There will be an intake area that should not be at the most public part of the building. There must be room for a heat exchanger, like a cooling tower, to generate chilled water and there must be room for a boiler to generate hot water. There must be a fan and coil unit; but, this may be centralized or at individual spaces. And, there must be a place to exhaust the old air.

Your task for our next meeting will be to layout a conceptual mechanical system that includes all of the above. It must be laid out in axonometric form roughly to the axonometric of the schematic plan of your building. We used to use this document to explain our desires to our engineer and our client. It was useful in both cases because the strategy used always had an impact on the quality of the schematic solution. Lay this out on an 18 x 18 square.