by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: The Army Aviation Support Facility/Maintenance Hangar (AASF) at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo., recently was awarded a 2008 United States Air Force (USAF) Design Honor Award. Designed by Coover-Clark & Associates, with engineering and architectural production by CH2M Hill, for the Colorado Army National Guard, the USAF deemed the AASF this year’s “best sustainable facility.”

The USAF Design and Construction Awards program annually recognizes exceptional design in Air Force installations. This year, the USAF selected 20 award winners from more than 90 nominations. Six projects received Honor Awards, the highest level of recognition, with the AASF taking the only Honor Award for sustainable design.

At approximately 115,000 square feet on 35 acres and at a cost of $35 million, the AASF was designed to house, equip, support, and maintain a fleet of UH-60 Blackhawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopters. The facility was completed in early 2008 and includes a 65,000-square-foot high-bay maintenance hangar, 25,000-square-foot shop and storage space, and 25,000 square feet for administration and flight operations, plus a fitness center, training spaces, and a large airfield for the rotor wing aircraft, says Carol Coover-Clark, AIA, principal, Coover-Clark & Associates.

Silver required
Coover-Clark & Associates worked closely with the National Guard Bureau to attain the facility’s LEED® Silver certification, a new requirement for the bureau beginning this year. “It started with the site design,” says Coover-Clark. “The orientation of an airfield, as you might imagine, is very important, especially in a climate like Colorado where we get a fair amount of winter weather. And because this is a flight operations facility, as well as maintenance, they’re very concerned about seeing the weather that rolls in from the mountains to the west.”

Other siting considerations allow the maximum amount of daylighting to enter the interior, reducing the need for artificial lighting. “In the design process, we ensured that more than 95 percent of occupied spaces in the AASF would have daylight access. This will help the Air Force save more than $10,000 in energy costs per year with the added benefit of making work environments more comfortable,” Coover-Clark says. The firm’s strategy included translucent wall panels, skylights, and a light shelf to bounce natural light into work areas. “In Colorado,” she adds, “we get 300 days of sunshine, so we’re really blessed with being able to bring daylighting in. It’s very effective when we do.”

An eye toward local materials and durability
To meet the intense demands placed on flooring in a building of this type, the architect specified stained concrete throughout. Keeping the floors free of additional materials that require a separate manufacturing process not only increased sustainability, but also reduced cost and provided a point of pride for the building users. “We really looked inside to see how we could enrich their experience and the maintainability of this building,” Coover-Clark explains. The floor design features flight vectors, highlighting the purpose of the flight facility. In addition, a historical display illustrates the history of the Colorado Army National Guard and allows a glimpse of the future of aviation.

The firm designed the facility to fit in with the local “prairiescape,” which included the incorporation of local materials. “Buckley is quite a large Air Force facility and has a lot of land, so we were looking at colors and forms and materials that provided us architectural opportunities, but also things that provided us recycled content and locally available materials,” she says. Other strategies used by the firm to enhance sustainability include xeriscaping and the incorporation of low-flow fixtures and waterless urinals. In addition, the facility reused excavated soil from the site for landscaping to enhance security and channel roof drainage to plants.

Team vision
Although Coover-Clark acknowledges the “blessing” of receiving an award for sustainability from the Air Force, she’s quick to point out that “serving our soldiers is first and foremost.”

“The most gratifying part of winning this award is that our team of designers, the Air Force base, and the Colorado Army National Guard realized our vision for the project and delivered a successful facility for the Guard’s soldiers and civilian employees,” she says.