The initial concept of creating more suitable space for the chemistry faculty and students goes back to the mid-1990s. The existing chemistry building featured outdated design characteristics of the 1950s with an infrastructure drenched in asbestos, leaks in the chemical storage room, and other hazardous conditions.

The journey originating with the need for a new chemistry building was a long one culminating in the completion of the exterior of the SERCC in 2005. The interior build-out is currently taking place and the facility will not be fully occupied until May 2008.

Along the way, plans were changed to accommodate a broader spectrum of researchers and students, and to ensure the new building would support the University’s research in bio-nanotechnology, DNA chips, protein chips, synthetic medicinal chemistry, drug design, nanolithography, and optoelectronics. The complex will accommodate 374 people, of which approximately 274 will be graduate students, 48 will be faculty members, and the remainder will be post-doctoral fellows, research scientists, and support staff.

“This truly is the story of a moving target because as desire shifts, the design has to shift,” says B. Montgomery (Monte) Pettitt, who serves as the Cullen Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. “That always means more expense, so it is very important to have the funding horse firmly in front of your concept cart.”

Design Balance and Requisites

Members of the chemistry faculty were the top recipients of research grants on campus and carried enough clout to begin to convince the University’s Board of Regents that a new building was necessary. As time progressed, however, the vision was expanded to address the need for more classroom space and pleas from the Engineering College for new facilities. The need for classroom space was especially important to accommodate the University’s 35,000 undergraduate and graduate students during the prime hours between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

The University received a state appropriation of $55 million in 2000 to construct the high-tech, high-performance SERCC to answer the needs of both the science and engineering colleges. The state appropriation came four years after requests were initially discussed for a new chemistry building.

The concept of constructing a building for the science and engineering colleges necessitated a delicate design balance to create a collaborative faculty environment, to separate classrooms from research labs, to satisfy the space requirements of the two departments, and to meet construction codes. For instance, height codes for buildings taller than five stories would set into motion additional construction restrictions.

An ad hoc committee was formed to provide input during the design process. The committee provided a variety of opinions from senior faculty, young staff members, outside consultants, and others with an interest in the project, as well as University vice presidents. Committee members often had differing opinions about how the project should proceed and as a result, plans were sometimes delayed or altered. The original planning focused on creating laboratories for individual and separate academic departments within the colleges.

“This plan did not maximize the level of synergy. The delayed completion of the building due to the need for redesign has created some frustration, but it has allowed us to redirect the planning to focus research groups in related research areas with less regard for departmental affiliation,” notes Pettitt. “By ignoring college and departmental boundaries, the design clusters together faculty with common intellectual interests. Ultimately, this redirection may have the greatest positive impact on the University’s research activity.”

The revamped design requisites call for the building to be flexible and to provide a collaborative faculty environment with adaptable space allocations, which are extremely important since faculty can sometimes be territorial and reluctant to relinquish space. Flexibility is achieved by having infrastructure for as many as 80 fume hoods per floor with variable exhaust techniques, providing proper shielding from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) equipment by installing soft iron in the affected floors and ceilings, and isolating vibrations that could disturb sensitive lasers and other instruments.

Wish List

Topping the University’s wish list of what the SERCC can achieve are an open-concept research space, secure labs, high-tech classroom space, and faculty-student access.

“We also wanted to separate the classrooms from the research facilities in order to meet government contract security measures, while still giving students access to faculty,” says Pettitt. “The faculty want to be close to both their labs and the classrooms.”

Faculty offices will be openly accessible from the elevators with unsecured entry, while the labs will require card access. The open-lab concept will be achieved by providing a common linear equipment room (LER)—a 12-foot wide room running the length of the building—with labs on both sides. The LER will provide space for common items, such as small bench-top equipment and ice machines. Common general lab areas will be located on each floor for common use equipment and services, including cold rooms, dishwashing facilities, x-ray and gas chromatography, and NMR equipment.

“Only when the groups on a floor have radically different security needs will we probably go to the next level,” says Pettitt. “Secure labs can be provided to individual faculty groups with doors to the adjoining labs available for use, if appropriate and agreed upon by both groups. Student areas are near the LER and student interaction will be encouraged by this arrangement, as well as in the student lounge area.”

Back to the Drawing Board

The original plan, which included input from faculty, was cluttered and included no meeting or congregation space. This configuration made it extremely difficult to create opportunities for collaboration in research and education, and also limited possibilities of getting natural light into core areas of the building.

“Never let the faculty, especially those who are starved for space, participate at this stage in the planning,” advises Pettitt. “The administration went back to strategic planning and determined the theme was going to be a chemical/bio-chemical science and engineering building with an integrated bio-technology/high-tech research and teaching environment. The strategy was still mostly chemistry and bio-chemistry with some chemical engineering and research-active faculty. The idea is to grow this bio-tech/high-tech research environment with an emphasis on synthesis, structure determination, imaging, testing, fabrication, and supporting computations.”

The redesign calls for the SERCC to be designated as a bio-nanotechnology facility with classrooms and plenty of space for engineering and science disciplines. Bio-molecular computation labs were added to the design in 2006, and one floor originally allotted for environmental engineering is currently slotted to bio-imaging.

The complex comprises a total of 170,000 sf with 130,000 sf for research space and the remainder for lecture halls and classrooms. The $55-million complex consists of one building with three science floors dedicated to synthetic chemistry, biochemistry, and biotechnology, as well as two engineering floors for materials engineering and biomedical engineering. Classrooms are located in a nearby building connected to a red brick drum structure housing a 500-seat auditorium.

The SERCC is promoted as a bio-nanotechnology research and fabrication facility that features collaboration between science and engineering, has a cleanroom combining high-tech and bio-tech, includes surface science and fabrication to perform instrumental development and the synthesis of new compounds, and provides state-of-the-art classrooms.

Overcoming Problems

“We were in desperate need of common space and we wanted to be able to integrate different scholarly fields,” says Pettitt.  “We had the proximity to classes and this would give us the opportunity to create new fields, except there were no meeting rooms in the building because a space-starved faculty-planned program leads to no open space.”

Other problems centered around the open concept outlined in the initial plans. In particular, territorial faculty want walls. The open concept was also a safety concern because it did not work well for synthesis. The layout was also not conducive for the inclusion of immovable program objects, such as NMR machines, cleanrooms, and electron microscopes, which require a three or four-story vertical hole in the building.

The project entered crisis mode after the classrooms, comprising 25,000 sf, were completed at a cost of $20 million, or $5 million over budget. The classrooms, which were opened in the fall of 2004, include 12 that can each seat more than 40 people and three that can each accommodate 90 to 200 people. There were insufficient funds to complete the research building part of the project, which at this point was basically a $25-million shell. A blue ribbon group was assembled to recruit donors, but it was not an easy task.

“It is hard to get donors to build out a shell because they usually want to get involved early,” says Pettitt. “Nobody even wants naming rights for a building after the shell is already in place. We estimated that we needed an additional $25 million.”

A $57-million bond was issued for science department renovations and the University could tap into the governor’s excellence fund or seek foundation grants and money from federal government agencies. Pettitt helped secure federal funding to complete part of the cleanroom, purchase NMR equipment for the chemists, and install 40 benches and hoods. More recently, his efforts have yielded foundation funds for the build-out of the Institute for Molecular Design, which he directs.

Becoming a Reality

The finished product is a beautiful complex, complete with useful classrooms and plenty of space for interaction, awaiting the final interior build-out and occupancy. The first floor of the research facility is designated for the cleanroom with wet, dry, and laser labs. The second floor may be used for bio-medical engineering, the third may contain a BSL-3 facility for bio-medical engineering, the fourth will be utilized for bio-chemistry and theory/computation, and the fifth will house synthesis wet labs.

Space allocation is based on like-minded clusters of well-funded faculty who will create and benefit from a stimulating, interactive environment. The decision has not been made about whether to charge researchers a fee to move into the SERCC or base occupancy on other revenues generated. Parts of the complex will almost certainly be used as swing space to house faculty who work in other buildings while those facilities are being renovated.

The project, which underwent several redesigns, is proof that fundraising should be completed before the building shell is finished.

“Also, remember to work for strong programmatic continuity in spite of the flux of administration and the people who actually hold the purse strings,” advises Pettitt. “Always let form follow function, meaning don’t get carried away with looks before you establish the actual function of the structure. The use of interior space and light are important elements of form. Too often, reckless desire can destroy the form the structure must take to fulfill its function.”

By Tracy Carbasho

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