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Proposed New Educational Center The Greenville Woodworker Guild Features of the New Facility May 9th, 2006 In the quest for a space of its own, the Greenville Woodworker Guild has endeavored to construct a new educational facility in Greenville County. A search committee is currently exploring opportunities for sufficient land for a new facility. Depending on local zoning ordinances, the site should contain about 13 acres in a rectangular arrangement. The more the site deviates from level and rectangular, the larger the parcel needs to be. A group within the building committee determined a likely program for the new facility and is shown in the attached Space Inventory. An inventory was taken of all the floor mounted shop equipment, and that is show in the attached Equipment List. The philosophy of the Educational Center Program is to provide spaces for the following activities:
The program and the plan realize fulfillment of this philosophy. The new building will have only two entrances: the ‘front’ entrance and the loading dock entrance. Other exterior doors on the drawing are for egress only and will not be operable from the outside, except by the fire department. The ‘front’ entrance includes a sheltered space outside for gathering out of the rain just outside the door. Just inside is a small gathering space for setting up the usual tables and record-keeping for regular meetings. A vending space is adjacent that will serve snacks at meetings and large seminars. Opposite the food area is the toilet area, amply sized for large meetings. The lecture hall, or meeting room, includes some 298 seats on risers, commonly called stadium seating. Space directly in front of the stage is for wheelchaired observers. Walls on either side of the stage are designed for rear projection screens. The ceiling will be designed to enhance both interior acoustics and lighting. Rooms in and near the lecture hall will be used for audio/video equipment. Proceeding to the right down the wide hallway leads to a maintenance room on the left. The maintenance room is for the staging of equipment parts and equipment repair, keeping this oily process out of the wood area. Across the hall from the maintenance room is a library that will double as a board meeting room. Beside the library is a room for shop supervisors. This room will contain lockers and a changing room for the supervisors, as well as space for record keeping and computing. A pair of doors separate the shop area from the remainder of the building. In the event that the lecture hall is leased to other organizations, this pair of doors acts as a control point, preventing non-guild members from wandering through the shop area. This door is also required for fire separation. Just past the pair of doors on the right is a mechanical space. This space could be further subdivided to contain electrical, data, mechanical, and water heating equipment. The fire sprinkler riser will also probably be located in this area, with an exterior door for fire department access. Leaving the mechanical room and looking up the sheet is the heart of the educational center. The wide hallway accommodates the movement of fork trucks with wide loads. Immediately to the left are two small rooms for mentoring. Each room can comfortable enclose up to three lathes, and windows are in the corridor walls, and in the wall between the mentoring rooms. Just past the mentoring rooms on the left are two storage rooms. One is for lumber, sheet goods, and supplies owned by the guild for the benefit of projects and guild members. This room could also be used for guild project storage. The other room is for storage of members’ projects. Across the hall, and starting at the mechanical room is the main equipment room, where all floor and bench mounted equipment will be placed. There is a separate room for the jointer and planer due to noise considerations. In the corner of the equipment room, but accessible from the corridor is the dust collector, enclosed in a doubled noise reduction wall. The air from the dust collector will be exhausted to the outside. The assembly room, to contain work benches and hand tools, is accessed from either the corridor or directly from the equipment room. In both the equipment room and the assembly room air will be supplied from the ceiling and exhausted through low wall returns. This will resemble a laminar flow and will help keep dust out of suspension in the air. All shop rooms will have lay in ceilings to reduce the areas where dust can settle and cause problems. Just off the corridor and not connected to other shop rooms are the sanding room and the finishing room. The sanding room will obviously house the sanding equipment, and will have air pressure negative to the remainder of the building. This will help keep the dust confined to this room. In addition, filtered exhaust openings will be provided at workbench height to facilitate the rapid removal of dusts. The finishing room will have air pressure positive to all others to prevent the ingress of dust and contaminants. Again, filtered exhausts will be placed at workbench height to remove odors as rapidly as possible. It is anticipated that spray equipment and a spray booth will be installed, as well. The site plan is shown in a manner that will allow future expansion. The building framing is such that expanding the length is very easy: simply add more bays and move the existing end wall to the new end wall location. The future plan layout shows doubling all areas. Future expansion must always be considered so that current construction does not interfere with future arrangements. That’s it, as far as the layout goes. The shops are arranged in a logical production manner so there is no back tracking as work progresses, and yet arranged so that any project can be brought in at any stage and enter directly where needed. The building itself is a pre-engineered type structure, with a concrete slab, steel framing, and metal siding and roof. This type of construction makes the dollar go farther for such a building as we need. In building code lingo, it is a single story building of Type II B construction enclosing Occupancy Groups Assembly A-3, Factory/Industrial F-1 moderate hazard, Storage S-1 moderate hazard, and Business B. All that means is that building elements will be non-combustible and the occupancy groups will be separated by fire separation walls, two and three hour rated. The shops, storage, and lecture hall will be sprinklered. In addition, the building envelope must meet energy requirements, and the building must be designed for a moderate level of seismic restraint. Interior finishes will be painted walls. Since the wall materials must be non-combustible, durable, and in some cases, fire resistive, 5/8” impact resistant gypsum board may be the most cost effective material. Since the floors must be smooth for cleaning and most shop areas will not contain soiling materials, a polished concrete floor should be considered for most areas. Exceptions would be the finishing room, maintenance room, library, toilets, and the lecture hall. The maintenance room will be suitable for a dust sealer. The finishing shop, maintenance room and toilets should have epoxy floor coatings. Carpet should be provided in parts of the lecture hall and in the library. Site selection is important not only for convenience, cost, and location, but also for seismic requirements. The primary consideration for seismic design in this area is soil make up. The soil condition can only be determined by soil borings, and the soil our area varies primarily from Class C to Class D. Class C is preferred, as Class D will mean a more robust structure to resist more severe soil activity during a seismic event. Security of the facility must be addressed, taking into account the usage by guild members, as well as other organizations. Some type of electronic system should be employed with battery back up. Some possibilities are card readers, proximity readers and bio-readers. In addition to securing the facility, the electronic system can also track facility usage by any number of parameters, from time of day, to personal frequency. A little more sophistication can help control lighting, heating, and cooling, realizing more efficient energy consumption.
By Charles A. Graham, Jr., AIA, NCARB\
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