Photo Gallery: NOAA's Green Acres

When managers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration decided to replace their decades-old satellite operations center, they wanted something appropriate to reflect the agency's mission of collecting and analyzing geological and ecological data. Working through the General Services Administration's Design Excellence Program, agency leaders selected the internationally-recognized Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne to fulfill that goal.

The resulting operations center in Suitland, Md., manages to look at once high-tech and unassuming. The facility is anchored by a disc-shaped concrete structure that houses control and administrative offices. Sitting atop this structure is a 47,000-square-foot horizontal raised bar crowned by satellite dishes and antennae.

The control facility's roof is covered with native vegetation and fits the slope of the land. "The NOAA project is literally engaged in the landscape, its employees inhabiting the space of the earth," Mayne wrote in a booklet produced for the building's dedication in September 2006.

During a recent walk-through, GSA's Michael Clifford, building manager, and NOAA's Paul Pegnato, project manager, explained why the facility received a gold rating under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification program. Raised floors and lots of open space allow for more efficient cooling and heating. The green roof provides insulation and greatly reduces runoff during rainstorms. A curved wall of windows and interior courtyards mean the building's nearly 600 occupants are each within at least 60 feet of natural light.

The building's data centers are consolidated in space that is calibrated between 70 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit. This is significantly warmer than most data centers, which tend to be kept colder than necessary out of an abundance of caution, Clifford said. The rest of the building is kept between 72 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit.

The changes have been difficult for some employees, Pegnato said. Senior leaders usually have offices with windows, a design that deprives others of natural light. At the NOAA facility, senior managers, because they need more privacy, end up in windowless interior offices. The rank and file surrounds them in sunlit cubicles. And because employees are working in so much open space, they are encouraged to use their "library voices" when speaking to colleagues to avoid being disruptive.

"It's a big cultural change," but one with significant energy savings, Pegnato said. In this photo gallery, we present a virtual tour of the building.

CLICK HERE TO LAUNCH GALLERY