Fragile Times Superior Building

Salem, Ore – Giant earthquake. massive flood. Forest fires followed by suffocating smoke. Snow storm cut off electricity for days.

Four years ago, a group of employees sat at the Oregon Treasury and compiled a list of every conceivable disaster that could strike a government building.

And last month, the Treasury Department, which is responsible for paying Oregon government employee salaries, revealed its answer: a new two-story headquarters. It is an excellent building inspired by these ideas of disaster. It is an office for our fragile times.

The building, which took less than two years to complete, is barely connected to the ground — it sits on so-called base insulators, capable of reducing an earthquake’s violent vibration by up to 75 percent.

The building could be completely off the grid — “full island mode,” one employee put it — with battery backup, back-up diesel generator, and back-up water and sewage systems. In the event of civil unrest, the building’s large windows, designed to maximize natural light, are made of “vandal-resistant glass”.

said Byron Williams, the Treasury’s chief administrative officer, who led the idea and construction of the project.

The Oregon building is part of a larger trend toward disaster-resistant buildings, spurred by outbursts of extreme weather, often linked to climate change, that are haunting residents from California to Florida. It is one of the most extreme examples of the desire for security, continuity and peace of mind achieved through architecture and engineering.

Serious and intense, Mr. Williams is obsessively dedicated to disaster mitigation. Oregon, like other parts of the West Coast, has had a lot in recent years, including wildfires, ice storms and of course the coronavirus pandemic. Just in case his employees are stranded in the building after a disaster, Mr. Williams has bought hundreds of ready-to-eat military meals that are now stored in giant filing cabinets.

Mr. Williams admitted during a tour of the building that the Treasury did not have a pandemic on its preliminary list. However, a ventilation system, such as a hospital operating room system, is able to pump indoor air and completely replace it with fresh outdoor air at a full cycle rate every 30 minutes, which helps mitigate virus transmission.

Evan Reis, a California-based engineer and expert in resilient buildings, said he was unaware of any other office building in the United States designed to withstand many different natural disasters.

“Sure, there has to be some kind of military facility, a refuge somewhere,” said Reese, who has studied the Oregon project but was not involved in it. “But I can’t think of anything that has gone to this level of multi-hazard protection.”

In his advocacy work, Mr. Reese uses the building as an example of a structure that achieves two things simultaneously, energy efficiency and flexibility. Treasury doesn’t expect to pay any electricity bills: With banks of solar panels and high levels of insulation, the building produces more electricity than it consumes. With so much natural light entering the space during the day, the building’s lighting system uses half the energy of a typical building, according to Chris Lewin, who oversaw the installation of the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and ventilation systems.

In terms of resilience, the building serves as a reminder that building codes in places like California, Oregon, and Washington are designed only to save lives; Many buildings and homes are likely to become unusable after a major earthquake. On the other hand, the treasury headquarters is expected to operate once the shaking stops.

The contrast between the old Treasury offices and the new headquarters couldn’t be more stark.

Previous offices were located two miles from the Capitol Mall, a phalanx of massive white-marble buildings constructed during the Great Depression. It’s a spot meant to convey the grandeur and elegance of government: in spring, rows of cherry trees burst with a riot of pink blossoms flanked by white marble facades that shimmer in the sunlight.

By contrast, the new Treasury Building is located behind the Denny’s parking lot and a chain hotel near the highway. It may be mistaken for an insurance office.

But in practice – and practicality was the main driver of this project – moving to the new building can be compared to swapping out a motorcycle for an armored car.

It is widely known that the Capitol was not planned for an earthquake. The 2013 report did not soften words.

“The Capitol is suffering from serious seismic problems,” the report stated. “If a major earthquake occurs, the Capitol will likely be destroyed and lives lost.”

Although some government buildings in Salem have been modified for seismic safety, most were constructed prior to 1993, when Oregon changed its building codes to take into account the Big One threat. Those buildings are considered particularly vulnerable.

Old treasury offices faced more than just earthquake danger. Computer servers that processed checks for millions of Oregonians were located under the building’s mains water lines. Technicians once had to carry buckets over computers when pipes leaked. The smoke from the nearby bushfires has been so thick for several seasons that workers have been blowing out ash that had accumulated in air conditioning system filters.

Officials were told that redesigning the old office would cost $10 million, prompting the decision in 2018 to build a new headquarters.

Participants in the project say they are preparing to criticize that the new building may be excessive.

On the rooftop, people look at it and say, ‘It’s so shiny, it’s so nice,’ said Steve Friborg, a Salem-based property developer who owns the building. Under the terms of a deal with the Treasury, he’s renting it to the state for several decades.

“This was built for a completely different purpose,” Mr. Friborg said.

Mr. Friborg paid about $31.5 million to build the building, with 35,805 square feet of office space — more than double the cost of a traditional office building of the same size. The Treasury will pay just over $2.5 million in rent each year.

Mr. Williams, the treasury official, says that in addition to the lack of electricity costs, the main justification for the relatively high rents is that the treasury’s business will be able to continue unhindered during and after a disaster. In addition to salaries for firefighters, police officers, teachers, and a host of other government employees, the Treasury handles unemployment benefits, food stamps, Medicare payments and state pensions.

“If our building collapsed, we would have caused a statewide disaster,” said Mr. Williams.

The engineers say they have addressed as many of the risks to the building as technology allows.

For earthquake hazards, building base insulators essentially separate the building from its base. Like an ice cube on a slab, the building will remain relatively still while the ground beneath it shakes. A similar system is being used at Apple’s headquarters, San Francisco City Hall, and thousands of buildings in Japan.

For an era of increasingly large wildfires, engineers installed a non-combustible siding and air-purification system, separate from the heating and cooling system, that could completely shut off the outside air to seal off the building from wildfire smoke.

As for flood risk, a constant concern in the Willamette Valley, engineers built the building several feet above the level at which there is a one in 500 chance of flooding each year.

To guard against contamination of tap water—as happened during an algal bloom in a tank serving Salem several years ago—the 100-foot-deep building will be used as a backup. An emergency septic tank is available if the municipal sewage system becomes unusable.

In recent years, as disasters seem more frequent and less predictable, planning for the worst has required many contingencies. But Mr. Williams appears to have answers for all possibilities.

When asked about internet service during the disaster, he mentioned a set of backups: two separate high-speed internet cables connected to a government data center; Another connection goes through a special Internet provider; A contract with a company that will supply two mobile trailers with reception plates when needed; And a bunch of satellite phones in the office.

And if all this does not work? Then there’s Backup Backup, a rooftop spot for an old-fashioned radio antenna.

Mr. Williams said: “The worst-case scenario is I’m sending email over ham radio.”

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