Betting Big on Bio
By K. Robert Wendel

Someday, an elderly man will take a pill that keeps the ravages of Alzheimer disease at bay. A middle-aged woman will see her breast cancer cured from a simple shot.

Those are just some of the goals for the new Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University in Tempe. But before scientists can save the world, they need a place to conduct the research. That's where the construction team of Gould Evans Associates, Lord Aeck and Sargent Architecture, Sundt Construction Inc. and DPR Construction Inc. comes in. Working under a construction manager at-risk contract, the team of firms and their subcontractors finished the majority of their work this fall on the $51 million project.

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Situated near Rural Road on Terrace Street, the 172,000-sq.-ft. facility is just the first of what university officials hope will eventually be a four-phase center devoted to bioscience research. The construction team is already coming out of the ground with phase two of the Biodesign Institute, a 175,000-sq.-ft., $53 million project that is scheduled for completion in fall 2005.

"The biodesign institute represents the state's largest investment to date in biotech research facilities," said George Poste, director of the institute. "It's the fulfillment of a public trust, because this project would not have been possible without voter-approved funding in 2000 and legislative support for research infrastructure appropriations in 2003."

Like other biotechnology projects, programming the new biodesign building is difficult.
Scientists conduct a wide array of experiments, so one type of lab won't meet everybody's needs.

"The labs are designed to be as flexible and adaptable as possible for a variety of uses," said architect Barbara Hendricks in the Phoenix office of Gould Evans Associates. "All of the benches are on wheels and the various systems are systematically laid out to maximize the lab's flexibility."

The project is just one of a flurry of new construction efforts taking place in Arizona.
Other projects include the downtown Phoenix TGen/IGC facility, a new bioscience center at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale and a new chemistry building dedicated to bioengineering in Tucson at the University of Arizona.

At ASU, the biodesign institute will form a new gateway to on the east side of the campus, with plans calling for an extensive desert garden.

The new biodesign institute is taking a different tack than previous research facility designs, where various disciplines such as physics or chemistry were segregated.
The new project aims to increase interaction between the sciences.

"The thing that makes this sort of building unique is an environment based on research collaboration," said design prinicipal Jay Silverberg of the Phoenix office of Gould Evans. "We are creating spaces for researchers to cross paths."

The project features a large three-story atrium running north and south that allows light to reach the main floor. Designers also used an extensive amount of glazing and placed the labs on the perimeter of the footprint to allow for plenty of natural light. A series of louvers and mesh screening limit the intensity of the early morning and late afternoon sun. Tapered ceilings soften the direct lighting and reduce the intensity of the sun.

Although extensive natural day lighting was a key design aspect, the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems dictated much of the design. The need for flexibility led designers to create centralized shafts and chases so additional mechanical components could be easily installed in the future.

"This building is more of a machine than anything else," said project manager Rob Saucerman of Sundt Construction's Phoenix office. "Since MEP is 40 percent of the project, we essentially built the building around the mechanical systems."

While the new biodesign institute takes cooling and heating from the university's central plant, the project still features a massive amount of mechanical systems. The entire penthouse on top of the three-story building is full of ducting and air handlers to re-circulate 100 percent of the building's air. Strobic fans shoot the used air high into the atmosphere, where particles are safely mixed with outside air.

High-end control valves called Phoenix valves regulate airflows and give operators tighter control of temperature and humidity.

Another key control factor is shielding sensitive electron microscopes from electromagnetic interference. Even the slightest disturbance in the magnetic field can throw off an electron microscope's resolution, rendering a multimillion dollar piece of equipment useless.

Project consultant Lou Vitale, an engineer and president of Vitatech Engineering of northern Virginia, likened the electromagnetic field to a pond where a pebble has been tossed. Even the slightest change can affect the surface of the pond and distort the view. Large ferromagnetic masses such as elevators and even passing trucks can have an effect if equipment is not properly shielded.

"As a large mass, like an elevator, moves up and down, it perturbs the electromagnetic field, which unfortunately causes problems with electron microscopes," Vitale said. "There aren't really many useful engineering equations, so it's kind of like a black art attempting to shield something from EMI and it not a trivial task."

He added that distance from disturbances is the simplest and cheapest form of shielding, but it's not always practical.

To prevent the project's elevators from disturbing the electromagnetic fields, the elevators shafts were lined in .75-in.-thick, low-carbon plate steel, the first of its kind.

Vibration was another factor in the design. The new biodesign institute is near the proposed light-rail alignment as well as two busy surface streets. Engineers chose a heavy, cast-in-place concrete frame filled in with extensive fenestration and a red brick façade. Floors measuring 18 -in. thick help to limit vibrations, and designers placed the most vibration- sensitive labs on the bottom two floors.

"Vibration figures into the design in a big way," said DPR project manager Brett Helm. "With the type of microscopes in this building, even a little vibration can have a huge effect."

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