R&D Budgets: Equipment

Published February 2000

During the very first week of planning for a new R&D facility, people on the project should go out look for special systems, special equipment and anything that is unusual in the existing building. This includes the isolated cleanroom, the researcher who needs a biolevel-3 fume hood, the piece of equipment that has high point loads on the floor, the guy that forgot to mention the radio frequency isolation he wants, the EMI projection and special skunk works. The costs of these additional items can run between $2 a square foot and $1,000 a square foot. They blow whole budgets apart; they ruin project schedules and entire projects.

R&D Standards As early as possible in the conceptual design phase, seek to reaffirm or fix project standards for these design issues: labs, offices, aesthetics, codes and regulations, energy conservation, operating costs, automation, hood air velocities (R&D), emergency power, lighting levels, standard floor plans, furniture and security.

R&D Buildings
One method of upgrading an old R&D facility is to add a vertical service corridor to the outside of the existing facility. AT&D Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., renovated a 40-year-old building by attaching 120-foot wide vertical mechanical and electrical service corridors to the exterior of the four- and five-story-structure. The service corridor is an independent structure with isolation joints between it and the lab buildings. One advantage of the outer service corridor is increased vibration control for the labs. The corridor also improves the facility's overall energy efficiency, creating an additional buffer against outside temperatures. Service elevators in the corridor allow delivery of equipment and materials directly to the service corridor without transport through personnel areas.

If sufficient headroom is available in an R&D retrofit project, an open plenum system between the ceiling framework and the service deck may be preferable to installing a ducted air distribution system. In 1985, AT&T renovated an existing manufacturing plant that included building in 108,000 square feet of cleanroom lab space to the facility originally built in the 1960s. The advantage of the plenum was that it did not require balancing to achieve an acceptable velocity profile, and it required less duct work. The system operated at a lower pressure drop and cost less to install than a ducted air distribution system.