Differences between Office Building and Supermarket Building - Essay Example

Differences between Office Building and Supermarket Building Function and Attributes. A building's function, or what it is to be used for, strongly influences its design and construction. With the function corresponds a set of attributes, standards, and design elements. All buildings have a common function: to protect people from the natural elements of weather (sun, rain, cold, and wind) by providing shelter, one of man's basic needs (after food and clothing). A well-designed building has three common attributes: it must fulfill the function, or the purpose for which it was built, it must be done in good taste and be pleasing to the senses, and it should have a sound structure, that is, constructed as not only to live out its projected life span but also to look as though it would (Upjohn 1968, p. 482-483). Office and supermarket buildings differ in the way they fulfill their function and the three common attributes. An office building's function is to provide an environment where people can work. A supermarket's function is to provide an environment where people can buy goods for their use at home, for recreation, or at the office. Both building types share several attributes like safety, productive working environment, flexibility, aesthetics, comfort, and accessibility. However, because of their different functions, they differ in some key design elements: parking, substructure, fire safety, and superstructure components (civil, mechanical (HVAC), electrical, electronics, and plumbing). Parking. Depending on their location, a supermarket generally should be able to accommodate a higher volume of vehicular parking compared to office buildings. Access to supermarket parking spaces should make it easy to unload and load goods to and from the vehicle. Most supermarkets have their parking spaces at ground level, while most office buildings located in commercial districts have parking spaces below ground, although some recent building designs allocate mezzanine floors for parking. This consideration affects the substructure design. Substructure. The load bearing capacity of large supermarkets may be similar as office buildings if the latter includes vehicle parking as part of its substructure. Supermarkets carry all types and weights of goods, from very small items to large household appliances. The supermarket's design attributes and substructure specifications will depend on the merchandise, or the types of goods sold. Since a supermarket is not as tall a structure as an office building, a large portion of the static load comes from the merchandise stored, while dynamic loads come from the traffic of people moving within the space. If parking, delivery and storage of goods is done underground, the substructure design should take this into account. At first glance, office buildings may carry lower static loads from office furniture and equipment, but it has greater dynamic loads coming from occupants and visitors. Being taller structures, office buildings are subject to higher pressure from strong winds and ground movements, both of which affect the substructure design. All these, and building code requirements for parking spaces, should be considered when designing footings, foundations, and structural retaining walls. Fire Safety. Supermarkets are at higher risks of fire than office buildings because of the variety of merchandise they contain within an enclosed space. However, they are easier to evacuate in case of fire because safety zones are just one (fire exit) door away and are located on the same level. Office buildings are less at risk of a fire, but if it breaks out at the upper floors, evacuation can be a problem. Superstructure design (walls, slab floors, and ceilings) can address this by providing isolated areas to contain fire hazards or act as safety zones on the same level, or not too far from the source of the fire. Fire safety systems are designed taking into account differences in building height and access to burning zones. Superstructure. Offices and supermarkets are different in several superstructure elements, but we will consider only the following: civil, mechanical, electrical, electronics, plumbing, soundproofing, and space. Civil. Supermarkets need wide open spaces to allow for long shelves, ease of traffic, and flexibility in in-store designs and merchandise displays, so most columns are built on the building's perimeter. The design of support elements (columns, beams, trusses) designs should consider this. Office buildings have a smaller footprint, but engineering design requirements of beams and columns may be as demanding due to the effects of dynamic loads, including the provision for a helicopter landing pad atop the building. Mechanical. Office buildings have lifts to handle vertical flow of occupants and visitors and are equipped with flexible heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that can be adjusted to suit the comfort requirements (air humidity and temperature) of different types of building occupants. Where these facilities (boilers, chillers, air handling units, plumb risers, ducts, etc.) are placed affects the building's over-all structural design. Supermarkets, in addition to making the space comfortable for people, should consider the different cooling requirements of frozen, fresh, and dry merchandise, both in storage and on display, and the variation in store traffic throughout the day. Electrical. Electrical (HVAC, electromechanical, and lighting) installations of both building types operate throughout the day, but unless they pass the cost to their customers, supermarkets are under pressure to save on energy costs, its second highest expense (DSG 2003), because its occupants and customers normally care the least about it. Electrical systems design should consider this in the face of market competition for lower prices. Energy savings in office buildings, especially those with vacant spaces, becomes critical since the electrical costs used for common areas (lifts, corridors, and lobby lighting, heating, and cooling) if shared by all tenants, because high rental costs may drive out tenants and increase office vacancies. Electronics. Office buildings include flexible design provisions for information technology and telecommunications in the superstructure. Flexibility is required by the frequent renovation and alteration of office space due to changes in tenants and their needs. Raised floors for cabling of power, data, voice and fiber, modular and harnessed wiring and buses, and conferencing hubs allow for daily work flexibility and future office space reorganization (Conway 2005). Plumbing. Supermarket plumbing is not as complex as that for office buildings where water and waste travel long vertical distances and should be designed to withstand extreme pressures caused by thousands of occupants opening and closing valves at the same time. Soundproofing. Office buildings have more walls, partitions, and ceilings that must be sound-proofed from both exterior and interior noise, while a supermarket has less walls and partitions and soundproofing is designed to limit passage of noise from the interior space. Each building type uses a different acoustic system to achieve the desired result. Space. Assuming that an office building and a supermarket have equal gross surface areas and volumes, the office building will have a lower total net occupiable area than a supermarket because of the number of walls, floors, partitions, and provisions for vertical pipes, lifts, mechanical and electrical space. Modern supermarket designs have exposed pipes for different utilities. The challenge to engineers, architects, and builders is to get the highest useable space in a building at the most economical cost to meet the building's function, but without sacrificing the building's structural strength and beauty. Reference List: Conway, B. (2005), Office Building, [Online], National Institute of Building Sciences. Available from: [November 11, 2005]. DSG (2003), Energy and Operations Services, [Online], Design Services Group. Available from: [November 12, 2005]. Upjohn, E. M. 1968, 'Architecture', in Collier's Encyclopedia, eds W. Halsey & L. Shores, Crowell-Collier, U.S.A., pp. 482-483. 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