Ayres Associates
Ayres Associates is proud of the innovative engineering and architectural solutions it has provided for the past 50 years. We deliver services in transportation, civil, structural, water resources, levee, and river engineering; architecture; energy corridors; environmental science; surveying; geospatial services; and GIS. Provides inspection and FERC compliance, rehabilitation design, hydrologic and hydraulic analysis, PMF studies, river restoration, and design of our proprietary hinged floating bulkhead for dewatering gates and intakes.
Company details
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- Business Type:
- Engineering service provider
- Industry Type:
- Environmental
- Market Focus:
- Nationally (across the country)
- Year Founded:
- 1959
- Employees:
- 101-1000
About Us
Practical Solutions, Environmental Benefits
Ayres Associates was coming up with pragmatic ways to save resources – and clients’ money – long before green became fashionable. Here are some of the ways we are being good stewards of resources on behalf of our clients:
Architecture: Our architects, including a LEED-accredited professional, design natural lighting, green roofs, rain gardens, heat reclamation, and other efficient features into clients' building sites.
General Civil Engineering: Drainage for parking lots and other pavement is carefully designed to strictly control runoff volume, improve sediment removal, and maximize on-site recharge into the groundwater. Landscape architecture adds plantings to streets and developments while minimizing the need for irrigation. Our experts help communities to plan development to minimize sprawl, infrastructure extensions, and commutes. Our civil engineers also benefit from the leadership of a LEED-accredited manager.
Transportation: Modern roundabouts and other traffic features are designed to keep motorists moving, thereby reducing fuel use and emissions. Roadway construction projects are carefully staged to keep traffic flowing and minimize emissions. And asphalt, concrete, and base course are recycled to reduce the amount of material that needs to be trucked to construction sites. One such method is rubblization, in which a machine fractures worn-out concrete in place for use as base course for asphalt pavement, saving all the hauling involved in remove-and-replace methods of reconstruction. Rubblization also shortens construction time and allows for lane closures instead of gas-wasting detours.
Environmental: Ayres Associates has helped communities win millions of dollars in brownfield grants and has designed transformative redevelopment projects that reclaim sullied sites and breathe new life into city centers.
Water Resources: Our staff restores urbanized streams to their natural state, and our wetlands specialists create wetland mitigation sites to provide wildlife habitat and water filtration benefits.
Wind Energy: Staff across multiple disciplines have provided mapping, survey, site design, roadway design, and bridge inspection services in support of the development of wind farms.
Big Firm, Small Footprint
While Ayres Associates takes pride in making a big impact through designs that meet clients’ needs, we strive to minimize the impact our own operations have on the environment.
Ranked the 258th largest design consulting firm by ENR magazine, Ayres Associates not only incorporates environmentally responsible features into the designs it provides to clients, but also uses dozens of energy-saving and waste-reducing practices each workday to reduce the footprint of our offices. It just makes sense, not to mention cents.
Protecting and conserving water
Some of our offices have “stormwater neutral” parking areas, and native plants are used in landscaping. Inside, some of our major offices are equipped with low-flow (1.3 gallon) toilets.
Reducing electricity use
Our architects have built plenty of natural lighting into our Midwest office designs. Window tinting is used to control solar gain in some of our Midwest and Southeast offices.
Electricity use is minimized by shutting down electronics at night, and our Denver office has a lights-out day once a month from late spring through early fall. The following equipment is used to reduce electricity use daily in various offices:
- Natural lighting sensors
- Sensory entry/exit light switches
- Energy efficient appliances
- Fluorescent bulbs
The use of personal heaters, fans, coffeemakers, stereos, and other electronics is discouraged in our corporate headquarters.
Efficiency on the road
We keep our fleet of vehicles efficient through the following measures:
- Regular tire pressure and air filter checks
- Annual tune-ups
- Removal of unnecessary items to reduce fuel use
Reusing, recycling, and keeping things clean
We’ve begun removing foam cups and plastic utensils from our offices and encouraging employees to use their own non-disposable plates, bowls, glasses, water bottles, and utensils for lunch breaks.
We’re using the following items in various offices to maintain a working environment that is both clean and green:
- Green-seal-certified cleaning products
- Microfiber dust cloths
- Cleaning rags instead of disposable toweling
- Plants to improve indoor air quality
And of course we are controlling printing costs by using print preview, print range, double-sided, and black and white printing features. We use recycled paper and reuse scrap paper as note pads. We recycle cans, batteries, plastics 1 through 7, and other recyclables.
A lot of companies are painting themselves green these days. Ayres Associates is green inside and out.