SAN FRANCISCO — DPR Construction has announced the opening of its new San Francisco Bay Area Regional Office, which is said to be the first net-zero energy office building in San Francisco. Designed to produce as much or more energy than it consumes, DPR’s San Francisco office aims to achieve official net-zero energy building (NZEB) certification by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) through its Living Building Challenge program.

The company said the San Francisco office will be the third DPR office to serve as a living lab for sustainability — the Phoenix office achieved net-zero energy certification in 2013 and the San Diego office is expected to receive certification in late 2014. There are currently 12 buildings in the United States that have been certified as net-zero energy by the International Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge. The Los Altos-based David and Lucile Packard Foundation headquarters is the closest net-zero energy building to San Francisco, a project on which DPR served as the general contractor.

“We continue to see both our client base and work force expand in the Bay Area and to accommodate that growth, we sought a larger work space that would also allow us to renovate and incorporate cost-saving and environmentally-friendly features,” said Mike Humphrey, regional manager, DPR Construction. “We intend for our San Francisco office to become the third DPR office to achieve net-zero energy certification and serve as a ‘living lab’ to test the newest and most intelligent energy efficient products on the market for others to see firsthand.”

The highly-efficient, 24,000-square-foot workplace includes a 118kw photovoltaic (PV) system to produce renewable energy and provide power throughout the office, and also a rooftop solar thermal water heating system.

For more information, visit www.dpr.com.

Publication date: 6/2/2014

Want more HVAC industry news and information? Join The NEWS on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn today!