Five designers from HOK’s St. Louis office – Brian Ballok, Lauren Field, Christoph Ibele, Brad Liebman and Leslie Wheeler – competed in the firm-wide Net Zero Design Competition as the team “Feedback Hydronics.”

The net-zero competition challenged HOK’s teams to create a conceptual net-zero energy design for a building on a site in their local communities. Teams were required to use HOK’s Sustainable Analysis Tool to obtain climate data, set energy use intensity (EUI) targets and estimate the size of on-site renewable energy systems required to reach net-zero energy.

The Feedback Hydronics team chose to design a culinary school on a site south of downtown St. Louis in the LaSalle Park neighborhood. The team’s design won third place in the internal HOK competition.

Tell us about your building. What major factors impacted the design?

We chose a culinary school with 10 teaching kitchens and a public restaurant. From a sustainability perspective, the high-energy demand and high volume of waste associated with cooking offered interesting challenges and opportunities. Additionally, we believed the program could bring some energy to a neighborhood that is near two metropolitan areas, but fairly underdeveloped.

The building’s roof and skin system is oriented to the southeast for maximum solar thermal gain. This correlates with the site’s layout, as the building is taller on the north side and takes advantage of city views.

The roof system extends past the boundary of the site, over an adjacent parking lot, to capture rainwater and solar energy. Adding covered parking, a valuable amenity, justified designing beyond the site’s boundaries.