Community Architecture: Securing Water for Agriculture in Escondido
Membrane Filtration Reverse Osmosis Facility and Intermediate Booster Pump Station will provide water for generations to come.
Avocados may be San Diegans’ most beloved agricultural product. So, how lucky are we to be on a team ensuring that avocado orchards in Escondido get the water they need!?
By building the Membrane Filtration Reverse Osmosis (MFRO) Facility for Agriculture and Intermediate Booster Pump Station (IBPS), the City of Escondido will provide a high-quality irrigation supply to its agricultural community (avocados and more!). These two facilities will also ease the burden on its wastewater infrastructure.
We’re serving as a subconsultant to the joint venture of engineering firms J.R. Filanc Construction Company and Brown & Caldwell for this $60 million project. The architectural services we’re providing include:
- The modern, metal clad MFRO facility, which contains a control room and lockers, showers and bathrooms. Photovoltaic panels cover the roof. Also in our scope of work is a semi-sheltered outdoor area.
- The nearby IBPS building houses four pumps that push the recycled water up to a reservoir, where it is stored before being delivered to farmers.
Creative Solutions
One of the challenges presented with the IBPS building was the tight lot size. We had to find a creative solution to fit the building onto the site in a way that would still offer access for maintenance vehicles and machinery.
We also welcomed the challenge of blending the pump station into the rustic character of other buildings in and around the adjoining park. At the city’s request, we designed it to look like a barn. The exterior metal cladding system we used picks up on many of the elements in nearby buildings.
Most of the pump station is secure and access is restricted (as is the case for the MFRO facility, too). However, we included two public restrooms on one side of the pump station for parkgoers to use.
The Design of MFRO
For the MFRO facility, affordability and expediency were extremely important to the city. We identified an attractive, pre-engineered manufactured building system that would suit the myriad requirements of this facility. It also provides a pleasant aesthetic experience for people passing by.
Finding opportunities in challenges is always fun, but our favorite part of this project was working closely as a design-build team. Especially with the MFRO facility, there’s a whole host of different systems that have to interact. Each company’s scope of work on this project was a piece of a bigger pie. We all got to see all the pieces coming together as we worked in our combined team.
Water for Agriculture
Ultimately, this project will produce up to two million gallons of water per day for agriculture in Escondido. It does so by improving the water quality of the city’s existing Title 22 recycled water supply from the Hale Avenue Resource Recovery Facility.
As City of Escondido Deputy Director of Utilities Angela Morrow said, “The MFRO Facility will provide a reliable, affordable and high-quality water supply to our agricultural community for generations to come, while beneficially reusing wastewater and reducing our reliance on imported water.”
Thank you
We are grateful to the Filanc Brown & Caldwell Joint Venture, as well as to the City of Escondido, for the chance to work on this important project.
