Interdisciplinary Research Complex

Facing the Future with Flexibility
At University of Wisconsin Lab

by Elaine Schmidt

The first phase of the Interdisciplinary Research Complex on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus will house some of the latest in medical and research technology when it opens in 2008.

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But the latest medical and research equipment of 2008 may look nothing like the latest equipment in 2011 and later.

"The researchers are looking for an opportunity to put in newer and better pieces of equipment," says Jeff Niesen, vice president for construction management with Appleton-based Oscar J. Boldt Construction, the general contractor.

Designing and constructing a building intended to house current and future generations of medical and research equipment is a bit like trying to predict the future. The next generation of everything from lab benches to cyclotrons may be larger or smaller or completely different in scope and function from what exists today.

The only solution is to make the building as adaptable as possible.


Planning for Latest Technology

To keep up with rapid advances in such technology, the $144 million project will create a 416,000-sq-ft building-seven levels above grade and one partially below grade-designed to accommodate inevitable future changes in equipment and research.

The need to procure the latest technology in lab and research equipment dictates that the specifics of such equipment remain undetermined until the last moment before purchase. Construction took up $123.2 million, and the remainder was for design, some furnishings and fixtures.

Tom Witte, project manager and senior associate with Milwaukee-based design firm Zimmerman Architectural Studios, says the process is "designing in the dark. We have one system being talked about that combines an MRI with typical radiation therapy. It's research. Who knows what they will attempt to work on and what the future will hold?"

It will include lab spaces, lab support areas, imaging research areas, vaults for a cyclotron, linear accelerator and TomoTherapy-a cancer treatment modality developed in Madison that images tumors as it treats them.

Filling the 86,000-sq-ft lower level of the building will be vaults for a cyclotron, a circular particle accelerator dealing with charged subatomic particles that need to be shielded from adjacent spaces. Concrete is the usual material of choice for such shielding.

"Typically the concrete shielding in the vault spaces for accelerators and heavy radiation equipment becomes part of the structure of the building," Witte says.
Niesen adds, "When you are pouring 3-, 4- and 6-ft walls, it's tempting to use those as structural members."

In the case of this building, the vault spaces were built with what Witte called "permanent construction made as temporary as possible" to accommodate future changes in the equipment the spaces will house.

"Basically, we built a concrete box inside the building," he says, adding that the building columns were poured and then a "bond breaker" was put in place to keep the next pours from adhering to the structural concrete. Bond breaker allows the concrete layers to move independently and demolition of one layer at a time.

Reconfiguring the vaults in the future will require serious demolition. "We're talking about jackhammers and dynamite," Witte adds. Future demolition will not have an impact on structural elements. The building's oversized corridors and lifting bays will facilitate such future changes in large equipment.

Flexibility Extends to Labs

Upstairs, the lab floors reflect the same focus on flexibility. All lab spaces, which will fill the 35,000-sq.-ft. floor plates of the building's tower, are being built generically-spaces that can meet different needs and later be modified easily.

"We went with a moveable lab bench system that's quite new," Niesen says.

The benches, made by Fisher Hamilton in the Two Rivers, Wis., area, are moveable.

Niesen says the benches can be unplugged and moved out of the way or repositioned. They are also adjustable to the height of the researcher.

"This is more like moving pieces of furniture into a place than like building cabinetry," Niesen adds. "The labs are like big dance halls with some fixed case work around the perimeter. The lab benches will arrive just prior to move-in. This all allows for quick changes."

Flexible lab space requires the same infrastructure elements necessary in fixed lab space but with more access points.

"We designed the lab spaces with primary distribution lines for the utilities infrastructure, the mechanicals, electrical, gasses, power and data lines," Witte says. "We also set up all the primary lines running down a linear equipment room, a very large equipment corridor, running outside the main wet lab areas."

Only the end runs of these services reach into the labs. In addition to providing the desired flexibility, this setup also allows for facility and maintenance work, such as changing filters, to be accomplished without entering the labs.

"The labs are isolated from the daily operations of the building," Witte says.

"They are not going to have to come through the ceiling of one lab to renovate or change another lab or add services."

Between the moveable benches and the easy-access infrastructure, Witte called the labs, "As plug-and-play as possible."

Supporting the flexible lab spaces are oversized elevators and doorways that are designed to accommodate the movement of lab benches, fume hoods, freezers, sterilizers and other requisite equipment.

'Significant' Dewatering

Construction issues began early on the project, including some significant dewatering.

"We had complicated soils with lots of different veins of impermeable and permeable kinds of soils," Niesen says. He says the soils required a change "in midstream" from a wicking and suction method of dewatering to a deep well system.

"A deep aquifer caused pressure from below that had to be relieved," he adds. Lake Mendota is easily visible from the site and that the site's lowest level is only 1 or 2 ft above the mean water table of the area.

"We have a utility tunnel below the lowest level that's just dying to be submerged," Niesen says. "It's actually designed to be submerged and built as though it will be submerged."

He says that it was built with lots of concrete for ballast in order to keep it from floating up on the water table. In addition to typical water-stop construction in the joints of the tunnel, a concrete add mixture called Xypex, a concrete additive, was used.

"It's self healing," Niesen says. "It has a crystalline structure that plugs any holes that might form and prevents water from penetrating."

Xypex is new in the United States. It is a product of Canada with distributors in more than 70 countries worldwide.

The Interdisciplinary Research Complex, which will connect to the university hospital and will house both medical and public health research (areas such as food safety), includes space for two additional towers, but funding has not yet been committed for future construction.

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