Designing a flexible facility to accommodate biomedical researchers and serve as a proper memorial to Paul Coverdell, a well-known and respected U.S. senator from Georgia, required specific ground rules. For this reason, University President Mike Adams and Nancy Coverdell, the late senator’s wife, were often consulted about issues regarding the design and programming of the 150,000-sf facility.

In particular, Adams specified that the Center be designed so that it would complement the architecture of the other buildings on campus with a Georgian-style red brick exterior and a sloped roof without vent stacks. The facility serves as a tribute to Coverdell with a spectacular, two-story lobby that displays a portrait of the senator and a commemorative timeline of his life.

A rotunda area in the back of the building leads to the Coverdell Memorial Garden, which was funded by a $200,000 donation from a friend of the family. Three engraved stone pillars in the garden represent the senator’s pillars of democracy. This attractive area is quickly becoming a popular gathering spot on campus. Both the front and back of the building are nicely landscaped to enhance the aesthetic quality and inviting nature of the Center.

Stipulations for the building also called for a state-of-the-art design to be efficient, economical, and flexible with open-plan labs to facilitate cross-discipline interaction and ease of modifying space for expanding and contracting research programs.

The University’s budget for the project was $40 million with funds coming from three distinct sources with different specifications that required creative solutions. Financing was provided by the federal government, state government, and the UGA Real Estate Foundation, a private foundation. Both the Foundation and the state were required to own a piece of the facility in return for their investment, while the federal government did not have such a requirement.

“The financing was an interesting part of the overall process and the end result was condominium financing,” says Harry Dailey, director of the University’s Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute. “The basement is owned by the state and the upper two floors are owned by the Real Estate Foundation, which required that there be air rights over the basement and that there be easement rights for the elevators to go through the air spaces above it.”

The project got under way in November 2002 and was completed in March 2006 with a total design time of nine months and a construction period of 21 months. The actual construction cost was $34.5 million with a total project cost slightly over budget at $45 million.

The final result is a modern, aesthetically pleasing, and highly functional building which has an efficiency level of 64 percent, can accommodate approximately 500 researchers and support staff, and pays homage to the memory of Coverdell.

Good Neighbor Considerations

The University is aware of its role in a college town and strives to be proactive rather than reactive to community issues. The Coverdell Center is located on the south end of campus in the hub of the University’s science activity. It is located about a block from a residential area and, therefore, it is important to have an attractive building that includes LEED features.

“The University has a very large campus located in a relatively small county and we have a significant impact on the surrounding areas,” notes Dailey. “We try to make the people around us as happy as possible by doing such things as considering traffic flow issues and including environmentally friendly features. We also used local products, such as the Georgia granite, both inside and outside the building.”

Ground water and rain water recovery systems, as well as energy-conservation measures, are included in the design. The recovery systems provide water for irrigation of the gardens, cooling tower make-up, and plumbing needs. The use of the systems reduces potable water consumption and mitigates ground water at the basement level.

A variety of green spaces have been created on campus to enhance the quality of life, the number of outdoor gathering areas, and the ease of walking from one building to another for University students, employees, and visitors. The Coverdell garden, located at the end of a long pedestrian mall, represents the southernmost of these features on campus.

Specific Features and Programs

The Coverdell Center includes a basement, three stories, and a penthouse. Mechanical systems are housed in the attic behind the cornice, and wells are used for air intake and exhaust. Architectural chimneys are used for lab exhaust.

A barrier rodent facility occupies 18,000 sf in the basement and contains 30,000 animals with a small area for fish in the corner. A dumb waiter provides access from the rodent facility to the imaging suite on the main floor.

Also located on the main floor are the administrative and faculty offices, lecture hall, two specialized conference rooms, and the bioimaging facility. The 10,000-sf academic research bioimaging suite houses EEG and MEG equipment, a 3-Tesla MRI, and a small bore animal magnet.

The second and third floors feature open wet labs, faculty offices, and small gathering areas for interaction. The third floor also has a faculty lounge and a BSL-3 facility with four suites.

The open labs are flexible enough to meet the demand for necessary configuration changes in the future. Adjacent small “flex labs” and specialty rooms provide additional work space. The open design enables researchers to collaborate and exchange ideas.

Another feature of the building is a community intervention suite to be used by public health and health communications researchers. High-tech acoustics and a system of monitoring cameras are available in this particular suite, which was funded by a gift from Georgia Power.

Issues Related to Building Personnel

First and foremost, the Coverdell Center is a “friendly” building that maximizes interaction among occupants.

“We understand the value of one-on-one contact. In designing this building, it was important to ensure that nobody could sneak into the building,” says Dailey. “In the old building where my office was located, I could get into my office, stay all day, and leave without seeing anybody. This Center is designed so that you have to pass interaction areas at every place where you enter the building.”

Convenient interaction zones are located throughout the building. Conference rooms and break rooms are provided in central locations and shared by everyone in the building to promote unplanned interaction. Daylit vestibules, complete with comfortable seating, whiteboards, and a view of the campus, are located at the end of each public corridor.

Faculty offices are designed to be relatively spacious at approximately 180 sf, reflecting the fact that much interdisciplinary science occurs in small groups around workstations that have access to data drops and voice drops. The offices feature quality cherry wood furniture.

“Faculty do a lot of work in their offices, spend time at their computers, have small meetings, and do much more in their offices than in the past,” notes Dailey.

A faculty lounge with catering facilities and an outdoor patio is ideal for seminars and other gatherings. Conference rooms are situated on both sides of the lounge and can be readily accessed to increase the size of the area for development issues, programmatic-related social interactions, and other large events.

Since there are several large lecture halls located across the street from the Center, the building contains only one 80-seat auditorium. Desktop power and data drops, along with wireless capabilities, are available in the lecture hall and the adjacent executive conference room on the first floor. In fact, wireless capabilities are available throughout the building.

A catering kitchen is located near the lobby, which can comfortably seat 80 people for events such as the University’s Arch Foundation Board of Trustees dinner.

Natural lighting was a key concern taken into consideration during the design phase. Ninety percent of occupied areas have natural lighting and perimeter lights are equipped with sensors that turn off or dim if daylight is adequate. General lighting for labs and offices is precisely engineered to the lower end of recommended standards of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), thus reducing energy consumption. Using T-5 lamps and other photometric equipment allows for the use of fewer fixtures and a better distribution of light. Occupancy sensors are used extensively in the appropriate areas.

Lab Design Issues

Labs are open without giving the feeling of a “bowling alley.” A partial equipment wall separates the lab into two spaces, but the area is still very open.

“The group of faculty members who got together to talk about what they wanted in this building had never experienced open labs before, but they were very receptive to the idea,” says Dailey. “We visited a number of facilities with open labs and the faculty did not like the ones that had the feeling of being in a bowling alley with large, long open spaces. Our labs are designed to cut down on that feeling.”

Faculty members also requested that offices be located adjacent to lab spaces because they wanted to be close to their students and other building occupants without being clustered in one particular area. On average, there are 10 lab spaces per faculty member. Multiple generic cell culture and small flex labs are located adjacent to the common lab zone.

All work spaces have abundant data and voice drops to accommodate computer equipment and to access the Internet. Noisy and heat-generating equipment is located in central halls away from the common work areas.

Building Security

“The design of the building addresses security issues very well. As the home to academic faculty, there is a need to balance access to faculty offices with restricted lab zones,” says Dailey.  “Given the variety of lab workers, including undergraduates, graduate students, post doctoral associates, and technicians, as well as the University regulations related to these individuals, it is necessary to have variable access that can be monitored and archived.”

University regulations specify that undergraduates can only be in the labs during normal business hours, but principal investigators and post-doctorate researchers can have unrestricted access to the labs throughout the day.  A card key monitoring system controls who is permitted into the labs during any given time. The presence of an animal facility mandates access control and high-security clearance for facility users.

By Tracy Carbasho