by greenHandle23 » Mon Feb 12, 2018 12:15 pm
You would put the Variable Air Volume Box (VAV) within the plenum space, and the coordination with your mechanical engineer would provide you with the most affective location(s) to locate these. The VAV component of an air-to-air system works in tandem with a Building Energy Management System (BEMS), which additionally works with the location(s) of CO2 sensors, and temperature and/or humidity sensors. These are located with reference to the buildings occupancy, environmental conditions, and the programmatic elements which are part of the Owners requirements and goals for a given project. So, to say where you would locate this VAV equipment is very dependent upon these conditions. The general idea is to provide more control over the ventilation a specific room, or zone within a building. As an architect your responsibility is to achieve the greatest economy for a all conditions presented, and usually VAV controls are sited within spaces which would otherwise be very difficult to control the correct ventilation, i.e. (along the side of glass curtain walls, within auditoriums having +20 ft. ceilings ect.) This is also not your responsibility as an architect, unless you are trained as both an Architect and Engineer, or work inside a firm with both disciplines under one roof as I did, which is why I know about this. You greatest leverage in locating this equipment as an Architect of record for a project would be your end goal for the project, you also may have several meetings with your consultants in bringing them up-to-speed with your overall design requirements in order verify the locations of these VAV boxes as well.