RNL Designs Washington Gas Company's New Sustainable Maintenance Facility in Rockville
WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 13, 2017) – RNL, an international architecture, design and planning firm, recently completed sustainable design work on Washington Gas’s new 11,310-square-foot maintenance facility in Rockville, MD, along with a 9,335-square-foot renovation of existing administration spaces on the 5.53-acre site. The facility achieved LEED Gold certification.
“This new facility isn’t just about improving maintenance operations for Washington Gas, it also signifies a new chapter for their Northwest Station Fleet Facility,” said Ken Anderson, Principal at RNL. “We worked closely with Washington Gas to create a more efficient facility with a modern, full drive-through arrangement of bays and support spaces that are safer and more comfortable for employees.”
This project is an expansion of Washington Gas’s existing Northwest facility in Rockville. The new facility replaced an old three-bay, one-story maintenance building. RNL designed the new facility as an addition to existing administrative office spaces. In the administrative offices, RNL provided a design for insulation along the roof line and upgraded finishes throughout the space including painting, new flooring and acoustical ceiling tiles, and redesigning and expanding the break room.
Leveraging the firm’s expertise in maintenance and operations facility design, RNL designed the facility both to improve maintenance services for the company’s compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles and also address the well-being of employees who use the space. The new facility includes locker rooms, a fitness center, a vehicle repair garage with larger drive-through work bays, a tire storage room with tire carousel, a larger parts room with mezzanine overlooking the work bays, and a wash bay for the vehicles. A sprinkler system was designed for the new addition and as part of the renovation of the existing building, further emphasizing the company’s commitment to safety. The project was phased so the facility could remain in operation during construction.
Sustainable design features include a sloped roof form, which allows for mitigation and exhaust of CNG at the highpoint and reduces the amount of required ductwork while providing the ideal angle for solar panels that attach to the standing seam metal roof. This design will help to offset energy usage by roughly 20 percent. The sloped roof also allows for high clerestory windows at the mezzanine which provide daylight throughout the work bays. LED lighting has also been introduced throughout the facility. Micro-bioretention basins are designed as part of the Environmental Site Design strategy and have also reduced the impervious area on the site. The basins effectively replicate the natural hydrology and slow runoff while filtering excessive nutrients and sediment from stormwater runoff to promote healthy watercourses.
Washington Gas delivers natural gas to more than 1.1 million residential, commercial and industrial customers throughout Washington, D.C., and the surrounding region.
For more information about this project, and others from RNL, visit http://rnldesign.com.
About RNL
RNL is a global, full-service design firm specializing in sustainable, integrated design. Founded in 1956, RNL offers a continuum of design services, including commercial architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, urban design and planning. RNL has offices in Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Washington DC, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. For more information, please visit www.rnldesign.com.