Humanistic Lab Design
When architects at Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership (ZGF) set out to design a research building for the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, they were determined to create a facility that would nurture the human spirit and foster collaboration.
Construction of the new $45 million (hard cost) Leichtag Family Foundation Biomedical Research Building was completed in June. Construction, which was on budget, lasted a total of 26 months. The facility is named in recognition of a $12 million gift from the Leichtag Family Foundation for biomedical research focused on childhood diseases.
The 146,000-square-foot building, with one grade below level, on the School of Medicine campus in La Jolla, provides critically needed labs and other research space.
The building is the first major new biomedical research facility for the health sciences in almost 10 years, and during that time the university’s research activity has nearly doubled, said Edward W. Holmes, UCSD vice chancellor for health sciences. The Leichtag Family Foundation is a longtime philanthropic organization in the San Diego community. The Foundation was one of the original founders of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., and donated the Emergency Wing and Women’s Health & Birth Pavilion at Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas, Calif.
The Leichtag Family Foundation Biomedical Research Building is sited along a very heavily trafficked pathway known as Library Walk, the main pedestrian thoroughfare that runs back into the center core of campus.
"The location of the building is important because there are buildings on three sides. It is very prominent," explained Joe Collins AIA, partner-in-charge at ZGF. The building forms a new quadrangle, or Quad, for the School of Medicine.
At the heart of the building is a five-story atrium, and its entire west face is a glass curtain wall that fronts Library Walk. The curtain wall "serves as a beacon that announces that you are entering the Quad, the school of medicine," said Collins. "It anchors the building along that major pedestrian route."
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PROJECT DATA Leichtag Family Foundation Owner: University of California, San Diego Office of Facilities Design and Construction |
The showcase of the atrium, which is open from the first floor to the roof level, is a multi-story suspended dichroic glass sculpture by artist Ed Carpenter.
Because of the smoke evacuation systems required of such a space, the exhaust system has a 300,000 cfm capacity in case of fire or smoke. All the windows along the glass curtain wall are operable as part of that system, and in the event of an emergency, would open automatically to allow air in as smoke was exhausted through large exhaust fans overhead.
Getting that setup to meet code is a huge feature of the atrium, explained Ron Hall, executive vice president at McCarthy Building Companies Inc., which served as general contractor. "You have to have a sophisticated smoke evacuation that ties the operation of the operable windows to the fans on the roof. It is a pretty sophisticated system."
The atrium, also known as the Scholarly Interaction Space, or SIS, serves as a gathering place and central hub of the building replete with couches and tables.
When light comes through the clerestory windows at the top of the atrium, it gets refracted throughout the SIS. Depending on the angle at which the light hits the glass, it changes color. "It is just another way to enliven that space throughout the day," said Collins.
On the ground floor there is a 2,077-square-foot conference center, which opens up onto the SIS. Both facilities have access to a south-facing terrace, which opens up onto a green.
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| The 130-seat conference room is enclosed with exterior curved wood canopies supported by "tree" columns that accent the primary entryway. PHOTO CREDIT: Robert Canfield |
The conference center incorporates high-end millwork evinced by its exposed structural glue-laminated timber beams and tongue-and-groove decking. The center has "a very beautiful barrel vaulted roof structure. Underneath it is the wood and on the outside is a stainless steel metal roof system over the barrels," said Hall. "It is a significant architectural feature of the building."
The Envelope
Materials and colors throughout the building, including travertine stone veneer and maple wood, were carefully selected to complement the eucalyptus groves found throughout the campus and to ensure that the building would have a significant lifespan.
The building’s exterior is entirely stone veneer. There are three types of stone veneer on the building: a travertine from Turkey, granite from Brazil, and a travertine from Peru.
The UC System builds facilities to last because it is an institution that is going to be here for the longterm and they cannot afford to build one that is designed to last 20 years, noted Hall. "The nice thing about working for the university system in California is that they build 50-year buildings. A stone veneer building is much easier to maintain than plaster. Plaster will deteriorate over time."
Moreover, architects at ZGF wanted materials that would enhance the humanistic work environment, providing an inviting space for researchers, their students, and staff alike. Architects opted to use an extensive amount of natural wood.
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The stainless steel exhaust ducts connect to five segmented plenums on the roof. There is one for each level in the building – four floors of (above ground) wet labs and the subterranean vivarium. PHOTO CREDIT: Paulo Fundament |
"We like the warmth that was provided by natural wood," said Collins. "We could have chosen metal or plastic laminate."
The conference center’s wood ceiling, when illuminated from below, "creates a warm glow" in the words of Collins. There is also a fairly extensive amount of natural wood framing doorways and windows, which makes the building "much more pleasant to be in." The natural stone tile comprising the building’s skin further supports the architect’s intent to create a warm environment.
Conservation
The complex mechanical-electrical-plumbing systems, present in any research building of this magnitude, were managed and designed by Fundament & Associates of Irvine. Nearly 35 to 40 percent of the building’s hard cost went toward the mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection systems.
McCarthy bid the project as the general contractor, low bid, and provided a full-time MEP manager to coordinate the detailed systems. All underground MEP work was integrated with building foundations to ensure proper routing of power duct banks, hot and cold water supplies, sewer systems, acid waste systems, lab air, lab vacuum, gas and storm drains.
"The building [other than the vivarium, which is at constant volume] is 19 percent below California Energy Commission Title 24 requirements," stated Paulo Fundament, PE, LEED, president of Fundament & Associates.
"So we are, in essence, 19 percent more efficient than the mandated energy standard for California, which is one of the most stringent in the U.S."
Title 24, California’s Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings, is part of a legislative mandate to reduce the state’s energy consumption. The standards, along with standards from energy efficient appliances, have saved more than $20 billion in electricity and natural gas costs. It is estimated the standards will save $57 billion by 2011.
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| The wet bench labs take full advantage of the building’s southern and northern exposures to maximize natural light. The southern side has an external shield above the balcony to filter sun. Each lab has a maximum floor-to-floor height of 17 feet. | 1 Wet Bench Labs 2 Procedure Room 3 Equipment Corridor 4 Vivarium
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When asked about LEED in regards to the mechanical and electrical systems operating in the Leichtag facility, Fundament explained it would have received several points in the area for energy efficiency. Noting that, "For one, we are about 19 percent below Title 24, which is about 27 percent below ASHRAE 90.1 [the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ energy standard]."
The facility optimizes energy savings by using a variable air volume (VAV) system in the four floors of wet bench labs and with the use of Phoenix valves, whose supply air turndown adjusts based upon the building load. They also compensate for the fume hoods; as researchers open or close the sash the phoenix valve senses the degree to which is the sash is opened or closed and adjusts accordingly.
"Those [Phoenix valves] are really function-driven but ultimately they do affect the energy efficiency," said Hall.
In the labs, the MEP systems are all VAV and tuned with segmented plenums, where each floor has its own exhaust-segmented plenum, to help keep the total break horsepower to the lowest possible, explained Fundament.
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PRODUCT DATA Construction Materials Stone Cladding: Klaser Tile Company Inc. Acoustic Products Acoustic Ceilings: Armstrong Carpet and Flooring Carpet: Durkan Commercial HVAC/Controls HVAC Control Devices: Johnson Controls Laboratory Lab Benches: Fisher Hamilton Scientific Inc. |
In the underground vivarium, Fundament designed the systems such that the fans are driven at the lowest possible speed and energy consumption. During the design and commissioning, "we tuned that system to the lowest speed possible, and that is significant because it is 100 percent outside air and it is continuously running 24/7 so the savings are really significant," explained Fundament. In a continuously operated facility, "a very little bit of savings really transforms into a significant portion, as opposed to an office building that is only occupied eight hours a day," he added.
Light
Natural light is brought to interior workspaces through clerestory windows, and the labs have floor-to-ceiling windows with ceilings sloping up to increase light in the center of the building and improve air circulation. The lab block was designed with exterior walkways to allow researchers to step outside. The walkways also serve as sunshades for the lab spaces.
All wet bench labs are on the outside of the building to maximize the use of natural light, which is abundant in San Diego. The lab ceilings were designed in such a way that they are sloped toward the extremities of the building. The envelope of the building is adjusted for the glazing, with double-glazing (low-e) coating on the south face and single glazing on the north.
"You get a tremendous amount of lighting and thermal efficiency and low cost also," explained Fundament, "because we don’t double glaze where we don’t have to."
There are exterior balconies on all floors, which have an overhang and a screen shading system to reduce glare. "The building has a lot of natural lighting but it is non-glare," said Fundament. "By that I mean that it is lighting that you see with and not lighting that you look at."
The building was designed in such a way that, even with the 17-foot floor-to-floor height required of the labs, which is much greater than that needed for office space, unnecessary volume was avoided and circulation was well thought out. It is the west end of the building, where the offices are housed, that has an extra floor.
"We were able to squeeze five office floors into the volume of the corresponding four lab floors. This setup was achieved with elevators that open on both sides and stairs, which run next to and interconnect at every level," said Collins. "It was a very efficient way to get the university an additional half floor of offices within the same building volume that they would have had anyway."
The true test of any facility is what the occupants think and feel. "The researchers are thrilled about the quality of the interior space in the building; the ‘humanistic qualities’ of the space," said architect Collins. "The researchers are happy. It is a space that seems to nurture the human spirit."