Evaluating K-12 Facilities for Health and Safety Since an additional round of COVID-19 emergency relief funding was announced through ESSER II, you’ve likely already started talking with your team and partners about how you can and should plan to spend this money. You have a list a mile long of the things your […]
A wind study is an engineering tool we can use to help clients make informed design decisions. It’s not a primary component of most projects and is not done for every building design, but when it is needed, the results can make a significant impact on the daily experience users have with a building or […]
COVID-19 is transmitted through saliva droplets from the mouth and nose. These droplets are released by coughing, sneezing, or speaking. It is possible for them to remain in the air for hours and potentially be transmitted through ventilation systems. Your HVAC system is one tool you can use to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and […]
As the ASHRAE Central Indiana Chapter President, I set out several goals for myself. One of which, bringing engineers and architects together in a collaborative setting. The two worlds are joining forces in the industry already, and I see engineers and architects working as a cohesive unit in our office every day. I want to […]
Check out our handy infographic about the 7 types of engineering systems that affect a building:
Site Analysis with Daylight and Wind Good engineering design begins with a comprehensive understanding of not only where your building sits in the world, but how it sits on the site. Utilizing tools like Green Building Studio in Revit, the Schmidt Associates team is able to test various site configurations to inform design. […]
Schmidt Associates has received an increasing number of inquiries about geothermal heating systems. We are also designing geothermal systems for a variety of projects. This blogs explains that technology. A geothermal ground source heat pump (GSHP) is an electrically powered system that taps the stored energy of the greatest solar collector in existence: the earth. […]
When my eight year old asks what an engineer is, I say “we make things work.” People don’t think about how something works, until it doesn’t. Below is a basic description of the seven types of building systems engineering. 1. Civil Civil engineering related to building systems primarily deals with the routing of […]
The term ‘Net Zero Energy’ is gaining in popularity. But what does it mean? According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the most common definition is ‘a building that produces at least as much renewable energy as it uses in a year.’ Why is this important? From 2001 to 2011 the average price of […]
Engineers always promise to create an energy model for each project — but what do they mean and why should you care? What should you expect at each phase? Like the rest of the facility design, energy modeling grows in detail and complexity at each stage of project development. Design Performance Modeling during concept and […]