The Broad Center was designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners of New York (design architect) working in conjunction with the SmithGroup (executive architect) of Los Angeles. Dedicated in September 2002, the 120,000-sf facility houses more than a dozen areas of research and a broad spectrum of high-end research functions and space types: wet and dry labs, imaging and electron microscopy (EM), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) instruments.

"Our research vision for the building is to bring together scientists from different disciplines who share common interests to investigate the biological nature of life and to improve the human condition," says Bill Irwin, senior director of Facilities Management at Caltech, noting that development is under way for the building's first social sciences researcher.

Total project cost for the Broad Center is $61 million, or about $500 per sf. Construction cost for the project was $47 million, which included $1.3 million set aside for connecting tunnels to other campus buildings and a dedicated substation. The construction cost equates to about $392 per sf.

"For a dense, sophisticated research building in California these numbers are pretty normal," says Irwin.

Many Disciplines, One Building

The facility is designed to encourage interaction and collaboration through the use of shared laboratories, as well as shared support space in the basement: a 9,500-sf MRI suite, a 2,200-sf glasswash facility, and a 2,000-sf EM suite. Interaction and information sharing is also fostered in lobbies, casual meeting rooms, kitchenettes, conference rooms, and seminar rooms throughout the facility.

The first floor of the Broad Center houses computational biology, the second floor behavioral biology, and the third floor structural biology. The first floor has a higher percentage of office space, given the nature of the research conducted there. These three disciplines are supported by shared core laboratories in the basement and subbasement (glasswash facility, EM suite, and MRI facility). The second and third floors are basically similar: Open plan, generic laboratories are located on the outside, with linear equipment space for fume hoods and heavier less-used equipment on the inside. Primary lab support is located in the core of the building on each floor.

The Broad Center houses 12 principal investigators (PI) on the upper three floors (four per floor). Admin support areas are located directly across from the PI offices. The basement will have space for at least three additional PIs associated with the MRI facility.

"We put our principal investigators together on each floor to encourage them to collaborate and work with each other."

The ratio of lab space to lab support space in the Broad Center is one-to-one.

"We think the trend is toward one-to-one because of the amount of sophisticated equipment that is now going into research laboratories," says Irwin. He adds that the facility's lab-to-office ratio (6.5 to 1) and lab-to-interaction ratio (2.5 to 1) are generous compared to other buildings.

Interactive Spaces and Places

Spaces for interaction and gathering are available on each floor of the Broad Center. A 95-seat auditorium on the first floor features a pre-function area, projection room, and state-of-the-art audio visual equipment. Data jacks at each seat provide access to campus networks and the Internet. A 35-seat seminar room on the second floor also has state-of-the-art audio visual equipment, a projection room, and pre-function area. The third floor has a smaller conference room with seating for 15. Seminar and conference rooms all provide connections for data and teleconferencing.

Although these meeting spaces are primarily intended for building occupants, they are available to anyone on campus.

"Meeting space is at a premium, so our seminar rooms, conference rooms, and auditorium are usually packed," says Irwin.

The computational biology area on the first floor has two dedicated conference rooms.

"Because their work is computational, they spend a lot of time meeting to compare data," he says.

Large corridors on the south side of the second and third floors have casual meeting, lounge, and library areas supported by kitchenettes.

"These common meeting areas are a place for the post-docs to gather for microwave popcorn and coffee," says Irwin. "We call the large lobby on the third floor our family room without a television set."

Broad Center project manager Bill Nunez points out that interaction is also built into the work flow of the building. Researchers in the lab blocks on the north side of the second and third floors gather in shared computer rooms located on the south side of the building.

"They have to walk through a kitchenette or common area to get to the shared computer area," says Nunez. "We're hoping that an exchange of information or discussions can come out of that."

Another important interaction space is Broad Café, a New York-style deli café with seating inside and outside. To preserve a 200-year-old oak tree, the café (along with the loading dock and service area) is located to the east of the main section of the building. A large courtyard surrounding the tree connects the café to the rest of the building. Bridges connect the second and third floors to the café from the east end of the building's east-west axis. Wireless networking is available at the Broad Café, the courtyard, and a grassy area immediately adjacent to it.

Generous Yet Generic MRI Suite

At the time design began, Caltech had identified three magnets for its magnet resonance facility: a 3Tesla human development magnet, a 9.4T rodent development magnet, and a 4.7T vertical bore development magnet. They hadn't, however, identified a principal investigator or a director for the facility.

"We had to design the facility generically but yet generously so that we could accommodate the installation and removal of magnets," says Irwin.

The magnet rooms sit outside the footprint of the building underground. Hatches at grade level lift off allowing the magnets to be craned into place after construction was completed. The MRI facility's location outside the building footprint also helps with shielding for the magnets.

"In addition to facilitating the installation, putting the magnets outside the building footprint helped to meet both the magnetic shielding and RF shielding requirements," says Nunez.

All three magnets have been installed, and the human development and rodent magnets are fully operational. The vertical bore magnet is in place and expected to come online within the next two months.

Electron Microscopy Facility

The Broad Center's EM suite features a state-of-the-art cryoelectron microscope, one of only a few in the world capable of imaging small cells in an intact, native state, in three dimensions. Cryoelectron microscopes maintain biological materials at the temperature of liquid nitrogen during imaging to help preserve their native structure. This kind of microscope helps scientists view biological structures without the staining and embedding artifacts inherent in traditional electron microscopy.

"This will extend the boundaries of traditional structural biology down to a cellular level to allow realistic computer simulations of whole cells," says Irwin.

This simulation work will occur in the computational area on the first floor of the Broad Center.

"It's pretty heady stuff," says Irwin, "and it really shows the interdisciplinary nature of the building, that our structural, behavioral, and computational biologists are working together."

Power Considerations

With three magnets and two electron microscopes identified for the building, power requirements are high. To accommodate this increase in electrical load and to provide for future campus growth to the northwest, a new substation was built integral to the facility.

"Typical building services of 33 watts per sf would be high for most buildings, but not in this case," says Irwin, adding that they are currently seeing a half megawatt load on the building.

Phoenix Controls valves are installed in fume hoods and pressure sensitive areas. To provide better efficiency elsewhere, pressure independent variable air volume boxes are supplemented with variable frequency drives on fan motors.

Nippon Steel Structure

The Broad Center features a concentrically braced steel frame structure using a Nippon steel unbonded brace. At the time the Center was completed in September 2002, it was only the second building in the U.S. to use this proprietary structural system. Essentially the system features a steel beam encased in concrete.

"Concrete being compressible and steel being more elastic, they work together in a seismic event and act much like a shock absorber," says Irwin. "The building will basically flex."

Beyond the performance-based criteria, the Nippon system also helps to maximize space by allowing more flexibility in placement of different elements in the building.

"The Nippon system allowed us to put doors where we would not be able to with conventional bracing," says Nunez.

Mid-Project Challenges

At 100 percent of construction drawings, planners decided more office space was needed in the computational area on the first floor. These were to be generic wet labs, but additional offices were added on the north side.

"The utilities are in, so we can always go back to a laboratory concept if we need to," says Irwin.

The attacks on the World Trade Center occurred partway through construction, raising awareness of security and bioterrorism.

"We have a very open campus at Caltech. We have really never had a security issue or problem, so when we designed the building, we didn't place much of an emphasis on security. We ended up strengthening our exterior doors and added additional card access systems and card readers, as well as additional cameras, an intrusion alarm system, and interior lockable doors separating quadrants on the first floor. We will probably have to replicate that on the second and third floor."

As a result, Irwin says, the Broad Center is the most secure building on the Caltech campus.

"The lesson learned is that we are now in a new environment of security concerns, and I think we are going to have to plan our buildings from now on to meet very tight security requirements."

By Lee Ingalls

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