"We think it will be incredibly important for recruitment and retention," says Colonel Henry G. Fein, M.D., director of WRAIR's New Facility Transition Office, and an endocrinologist who left the lab bench to oversee construction of the new center. "We compete with the world's great research institutions for personnel, and we're coming from truly substandard facilities to something state of the art." He adds that the center is already proving very attractive to potential industry partners in cooperative research and development agreements.

The 474,000-sf facility houses more than 250 principal investigators. In addition to lab and office space, the new WRAIR features a 13,000-sf library; a 58,000-sf animal facility that include isolation units and operating rooms; and seven Biosafety Level Three laboratory suites, two of which are in the animal facility.

The animal facility is connected by a tunnel and elevators to an adjoining large-animal care facility, which allows animals to be transported between buildings without breaking quarantine. The lab also contains clinical investigation suites which lodge human volunteers for early-phase drug/vaccine research and for sleep deprivation studies.

Various areas throughout the building are designed to foster collaboration, such as a cafeteria, plaza, corner lounges and, in particular, the skylit wood-lined 90' atrium which also contains a stairway. Departmental offices ring the atrium on all three above-ground floors, so that researchers must frequently come there to do their administrative assignments. Conference rooms are also located just off the atrium.

"This way the immunologist runs into the biochemist, who runs into the physiologist, who runs into the malaria vaccine developer, and so on," says Fein.

Although some offices in the new facility gain natural light from clerestory windows, most are small and windowless in favor of spacious labs with natural light and views of nearby Rock Creek Park. Technicians share office space beside the laboratories (with windows and sliding glass doors looking into the labs). The lab corridors have a racetrack design with the interior areas devoted to scientists' offices and support modules. The latter contain common equipment rooms, storage, decontamination rooms (one sterilizer for every ten scientists), and cold/freezer rooms. The rationale is to encourage scientists to spend more in the laboratories and common areas where they can mingle and collaborate.

"You really can't be a loner scientist here and survive very long," says Capt. Richard C. Hibbs Jr., M.D., commander of the Naval Medical Research Center. "In order to carry out your regular day's work, you are going to interact with a lot of your colleagues whether you want to or not."

The new facility is the first research building at WRAIR built from the ground up, not converted from a school or warehouse structure. It features a seven-foot interstitial space above all occupied areas to house wiring, pipes, HVAC, and other utilities, allowing them to be easily reconfigured. The structure's steel frame means that walls can be moved, allowing office and lab space to be reconfigured as needed.

About 75 percent of the building's professional staff are Army scientists and 25 percent are from the Navy. The Navy's biodefense research program also will be relocated to the new facility, as will some Army biodefense projects housed at the old WRAIR facility.

"There already are divisions talking about buying equipment jointly who normally would not be able to afford it on their own," says Dr. Fein. "That's one of the things that's so nice about being in one building."

The facility will have one fixed and two portable videoconferencing units. The auditorium, conference rooms, and teaching spaces are all connected to an electronic control center, allowing images and data to be assembled and transmitted among these and through the Internet.

Lining both exterior corridors on the main floor are a series of ten mosaics composed of ceramic tile that, up close, appear to be designs. However, when viewed from a distance, the mosaics change dramatically, presenting images of founding scientists, including Walter Reed himself, as well depictions of the work done at the lab such as vaccine development, undersea medicine, and research into combat stress and infectious diseases. Etched in slate panels that adjoin the mosaics are quotations and citations that amplify the images.

Project Information
Building Owner:		Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
Owner Contact:		Col. Henry G. Fein, M.C., U.S.A., Chief, Facility Transition Office
Building Location:		Forest Glen, MD UNITED STATES
Project Type:		New Construction
Principal Building Function:		Biomedical Research
Project Delivery Method:		General Contractor
Project Timeline		Jan 1990 Planning Start Nov 1991 Design Start Feb 1995 Construction Start Mar 1999 Completion Last known status: Completed
Project Cost:		$195,000,000
Construction Cost:		$147,000,000
Cost Per Sq. Ft:		$310
		About These Cost Figures
Building Information
Project Includes:		Headquarters Laboratory: Wet Vivarium
Total GSF:		474,000
Total NSF:		276,000
Efficiency:		58%
Building Population:		1000
People Density:		474 gsf/person
Building Services:		100% single-pass-through HVAC with variable air volume controls Central deionized water with point-of-use final polishing Laboratory gases: nitrogen, compresses air, vacuum, natural gas, carbon dioxide Animal facility operating room: nitrous oxide, oxygen Direct digital building systems control Automated security system (cardkeys, 75 cameras) Computerized laboratory equipment monitoring system Fiber-optic cable to every communications module
Special Equip:		Electron microscopy suite (one scanning and two transmission electron microscopes) Animal necropsy suite Insect rearing suite Peptide-labeling radiation laboratory Gamma irradiator Video-teleconferencing center
Office Size:		60/85/120 NSF
HVAC Req:		4 cfm/nsf
Structure/Foundation:		Steel frame, composite
Laboratory Parameters
Lab Module:		30'x30',15'x30'
Casework Mat'l:		Wood bench cabinets, epoxy countertops, painted steel shelving, and wall cabinets
Fume Hoods:		139-6'
Biosafety Cabinets:		Class II, Type A 62-4' Class II, Type B 125-4' Class II, Type C 15-6'
Project Team
Builder		Manhattan Construction Company
Supplier - Biosafety Cabinets		NUAIRE Inc.
Supplier - Biosafety Cabinets		The Baker Company
Supplier - Casework		Fisher Hamilton
Supplier - Fume Hoods		Fisher Hamilton
Supplier - Furniture		Herman Miller Services
Supplier - HVAC		Trane Company
Supplier - Sterilizers		STERIS Corporation
Profile Created 07/01/2000
Last Updated 04/04/2006
About the Reported Cost Figures The cost figures reported are supplied by the firms that submitted these projects for publication, which in most cases are the designers or builders. Whereas these sources are intimately familiar with their projects, they may not be fully aware of the owners' finally-realized and recorded costs. In some cases, costs are truly and completely accounted for, and in others they represent a near approximation of the final costs. Costs have not been adjusted for year of construction, nor has any attempt been made to make regional cost adjustments. Further, costs are not comparable on any kind of detailed standard costing model. Hence, it is possible for the cost of one building to include a steam boiler, while the cost of a comparable building might not include the boiler, if steam is being supplied from an already existing campus grid. Or, in another case, a building might include excess boiler capacity to supply steam to another building. Some submittals include fees or unusual site improvements as part of the construction costs, which others do not.