Weathering the Elements is a Team Effort

While the weather in February on the Many Farms High School campus is typically dry, there are outlier days where rain, snow, and a mix of both can catch students and staff by surprise. Such was the case for team members from WBK Engineering , who traveled out to the site for what was scheduled to be a two-day visit.

“We had snow and rain in the morning, then it cleared up and there was 30 – 40 mile an hour winds in the afternoon,” said John Witte, Civil Engineer and Stormwater Resource Manager. “We actually cut our site visit and packed everything into one day.”

Designing a high school campus in the northern Arizona climate means designing to endure all four elements – water, earth, wind, and sun. Such is the challenge for the team currently in the Design Development phase of the Many Farms project. We spoke with team members to learn how they are moving through the design phase with the elemental extremes of the region in mind.

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Keep Campus Above Water

The first week of July typically marks the beginning of the monsoon season. Running through the end of September, this is the time when the area receives nearly half its annual precipitation, according to the National Weather Service. Many Farms High School sits just below a mesa. During rainstorms, large amounts of water runoff flow onto the school campus, which was not originally structured to relieve this water.

“Our challenge is to get the water from the campus and create positive drainage,” explains Witte. “But it is so flat from one side of the campus to the other. We decided to create concrete channels with a flatter slope to carry the water away from the campus.”

The rest of the year can be very dry, making the area tough for vegetation to survive without some type of irrigation system. An irrigation system in the middle of the desert would not only be expensive but would also require high maintenance. The team decided to use xeriscaping, the process of designing with native plants that are endemic to the climate, can survive on little water and, in this case, also withstand the high volumes of runoff water during the rainy season.

Luke Rushing at WLA Studio says the challenge of designing in the desert made him think of ways to use water outside the traditional construction sense. “We’re taking advantage of what can be provided by nature to help supplement our design,” Rushing said.

Xeriscaping, according to National Geographic, also looks at ways to avoid losing water. Rushing says the plan is to incorporate a retainage system that would store the rainwater from the monsoon season for use during the drier months. The collected rainwater helps to maintain the landscape and could also be used as a teaching tool for the agricultural program.

A Twist in the Wind

Little vegetation means almost no barriers against the wind, which can reach speeds over 50 miles per hour. Winter in northern Arizona brings the harshest winds and with them – dust storms. This takes a toll on the facilities maintenance staff, who constantly must replace filters in their heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system due to the dust and debris.

Cameron Dolsby, Project Engineer from The Steelhead Engineering Company, said the equipment being used to update the HVAC system has built in redundancy to screen out sediment and filter air upon entry as well as when it leaves the HVAC system into the facility.

“We’re putting guards around the outdoor units to protect them from initial sediment, and we’re also upgrading the filtration system to have sediment blockers. We also have pre- and post-filters on all our units to make sure air coming into the unit is good, then any air going into the school is doubly protected.”    — Cameron Dolsby          

The team is also working with facilities staff on the back end to develop a schedule for filter replacement and to identify any issues with the new system that arise. Protecting the outdoor HVAC units from initial sediment and using a double-filtration system for the air will deliver better filter performance and will lengthen the period of time between replacements.

Another important part of the design of Many Farms High School is improving the outdoor experience of the campus. Walking from their living quarters to the school, students and staff are sometimes met with dust bowls billowing through campus. This can make it impossible to open your eyes without getting dirt in them. By strategically designing retaining walls across the site to break the wind, the volume of wind and sediment battering the people and the school buildings is being reduced.

To protect students while enjoying outdoor seating areas, the team is incorporating social spaces on downwind sides of the school. The buildings will help block the wind while students enjoy lunch with their peers.                    

Getting Down to Earth

The site of Many Farms High School consists of clay soil, giving the earth a shrink-swell property in this area. The WBK Engineering team is working on a project for the National Parks Service in South Dakota, where there is also expansive clay soil, making it a breeze to understand  the school’s terrain.

The rainy season causes large pools of water to form across the campus.  The school originally built small channels to direct the water away, only to have a new issue come up from the earth. Water and wind pick up sediment and other debris and deposit it into these channels. Currently, the facilities staff must shovel sediment out of the channels after each storm for the drainage to work. The task for our team was to help reduce the amount of upkeep required by the school’s maintenance crew.

“Our challenge was to create positive drainage and get the water away from the campus while also helping alleviate the maintenance of sediment buildup in these channels.”    — John Witte

The WBK team is designing concrete channels to make it easier for the facilities staff to shovel out debris with a small piece of machinery or a shovel.  The team is also working to minimize the amount and length of storm sewer within the school’s campus. While there’s no way to keep the sediment off campus altogether, the goal is to design systems with adequate velocity to reduce the buildup of sediment.

The Sunny Side to Solar

 While all the elements present challenges with designing in the Arizona desert, they also have their benefits. Such is the case with the sun, which beats down on Many Farms High School an average of 255 days out of the year. Right away, the design team working on the housing complexes for school staff realized the impact the sun would have on their approach. Marcus Smith, Project Manager at Blue Star Integrative Studio, is leading the work on the staff quarters. During an initial site visit, Marcus quickly noticed where the team could improve housing designs.

“On the way into the site, we noticed a lot of the shingles on the existing homes were completely destroyed by UV and heat damage,” Smith said.

An easy fix, the team is designing the new staff quarters with a cool metal roof system that includes lightly colored metal to reflect the sun’s UV rays and resist fading. This solution doesn’t just mean improvements for the exterior of the housing complexes. Cool roofs can reduce the cost of cooling the interior of the building as well. According to the Green Building Alliance, implementing cool metal roof systems can result in energy savings of seven to upwards of 15 percent.

As far as other benefits from the sun, the engineering team has found ways to utilize the high amount of sunlight to help the project meet LEED certification requirements. Utilizing the school’s roof, the plan is to incorporate solar panels into the design, collecting 186 Kilowatts of energy annually.

“Being in Arizona, we’re dealing with a lot of sun, right?” Dolsby said. “It’s actually been a benefit to us because we’re able to harness a lot of that power using solar panels, which helps offset the energy needs of the system and keeps costs down.”

Creating Space for Culture

The design team also plans to incorporate some new outdoor structures for students to use as gathering areas. Inspired by the traditional dwellings of the Navajo people, the dome-shaped structures will provide students with protection against all the elements as they walk across the campus. With the addition of gathering areas like these and other design aspects that pay homage to Navajo traditions and culture, the new Many Farms campus creates space for students to build a deeper connection to their traditions and heritage.