For Immediate Release: November 30, 2007
HGA Designs Stunning State-of-the-Art Research Facility for Medical College of Wisconsin and Children's Research Institute
Milwaukee, WI - The new Translational and Biomedical Research Center for the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and the Children's Research Institute (CRI) propels both organizations into the 21st century with a state-of-art facility that supports a broad range of research projects and protocols. HGA Architects and Engineers (HGA) of Milwaukee led a team of design professionals to design the blue-glass and red-brick building, a collaborative project between the two research organizations. Located on the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center (MRMC) Campus in Milwaukee, the 300,000-square-foot facility provides 180,000-square feet of shared research space, including two wings of laboratories, one for MCW and the other for CRI, and 120,000-square-feet of vivarium and support space.
The $91.2 million facility allows Wisconsin's largest private research institution, the Medical College of Wisconsin, to conduct externally funded research on more than 3,000 research protocols this year. Ranked 46th among the nation's 125 medical schools for research grants and contract funding from the National Institutes of Health, MCW's research initiatives conducted in the Translational and Biomedical Research Center are focused on cancer research, biomedical research, structural biology, and bio-preparedness and infectious diseases.
"Research conducted in this new facility will strengthen the Medical College's commitment to translational research-the acceleration of basic science or 'bench laboratory' research into new clinical applications benefiting patients," explains T. Michael Bolger, President and CEO of the Medical College.
The new facility also represents a leap forward for pediatric research in Wisconsin, according to Jon E. Vice, President and CEO of Children's Hospital and Health System. The only research center in Wisconsin solely
dedicated to children's health issues, CRI has expanded seven key programs since moving into the new building: molecular critical care; developmental vascular biology; vascular biology/pediatric surgery; the Children's Kidney Disease Research Program; the Individualized Medicine Institute; pathology/vascular anomalies; and clinical pharmacology, pharmaco-genetics and teratology.
"Our research programs are growing quickly and yielding new treatments and diagnostics for our patients at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin," Vice says, crediting the new facility with expediting the process from research to treatment. "You can see how projects move in a relatively short period of time from the research laboratories to the bedside. It's translational research at its best."
For the project team, the primary challenge in designing the new facility was creating a building for two users, each with its own distinct identity. The design solution, explains Richard R. Hombsch, project manager, HGA, was to split the building into two wings individualized through site orientation, location of office spaces and laboratories, and different applications of the same exterior materials.
To promote collaboration between researchers, a center atrium connects the two wings and functions as a gathering space and meeting area. In addition, HGA's team created an exterior courtyard between the new research facility and an existing building as a gathering area for researchers, employees and students. The courtyard is also connected to the MCW cafeteria.
"Our contemporary design, while also ensuring optimal flexibility and access to state-of-th--art technology, has allowed MCW to expand its research environment, recruit more researchers and secure additional grant money," Hombsch explains. "The design also has helped CRI step up and become a national leader in pediatric healthcare by giving the institute a dynamic identity with which to recruit top talent and conduct critical research."
Singular Purpose, Dual Identities. The new Translational and Biomedical Research Center sits on a solid brick base that grounds the structure in substance and stability. Above the brick base a blue-glass and aluminum-frame curtain wall cantilevers out over the brick about eight feet, making the building appear as if it's floating. The glass curtain wall facing the main roadway houses the offices for CRI, and gives the institute a public face visible outside of the campus. The institute's research laboratories are located on the opposite side of the building.
Conversely, MCW's offices are located within another glass curtain wall facing the courtyard and the existing building next door, establishing a less public face that connects MCW with the rest of the campus. MCW's research laboratories are located on the opposite side of the building from the curtain wall. In other words, the design team resolved the design challenge of housing two entities in a single building by flipping the programs for each user. "The basic design and programming concepts for the building's organization and function are the same for both, just reversed," Hombsch explains.
In creating the exterior design and interior programming, the design team worked closely with MCW and CRI's Research Committee. HGA used a variety of specialty three-dimensional software applications to explore, conceptualize and communicate to the clients their options during various stages in the design process. Such collaborative processes helped determine the location of the research facility's vivarium in the windowless brick base. The vivarium includes a state-of-the-art, full-service housing facility and barrier environment for a series of animal-holding suites.
In addition, cost-saving and energy-efficient systems were established wherever possible throughout the building. For example, the lighting design brings electrical use well below code requirements. Supply and return air-handling units that serve offices and public spaces have full economizer sequences that allow those units to mix inside and outside air-without using cooling coils whenever possible-to optimum temperature. In addition, air-turndown settings in offices and public areas are 30 percent of design airflow when the spaces are in non-cooling mode, which reduces the amounts of air and hot water required.
All lab, office and public spaces utilize variable air volume, which reduces the amount of air required to meet heat or cooling requirements, thus saving on electricity needed to run fans. Similarly, heating hot-water pumps and chilled-water-supply pumps have variable frequency drives to save power use.
Designing for a Flexible Future. The Translational and Biomedical Research Center was constructed on an extremely tight site and necessitated building out to the existing lease lines in order to fit the programs of the two organizations into a single building. In addition, the structure was constructed over an existing infrastructure of steam tunnels, chilled-water mains, sewers and electrical utilities, which had to be relocated and modified prior to the building's construction.
During the pre-design process, the design team initiated a series of interactive workshops with the users' Research Committee to determine how to accommodate various laboratory functions. Considerations in the programming of the laboratory space included: an open, interactive environment that still provides privacy for individual researchers; adaptability for present and future as-yet-unknown uses; laboratory modules; laboratory support spaces; offices; and vivarium requirements. Virtual tours were conducted of completed laboratory projects to help committee members envision the research environment they desired.
As a result, the design for the laboratory uses a 12-foot-wide linear equipment-room concept between the laboratory and laboratory-support area, with designated equipment zones on each side and an aisle down the middle. Offices are clustered outside of the lab-support area. The plan has many advantages in its streamlining of efficiencies; serviceable components are housed in the ceiling, noise and heat are channeled away from the lab space, and materials flow through a secure corridor.
CRI and MCW both agreed to extremely flexible, non-fixed casework that can be easily reconfigured with changing needs in research protocols and personnel. The casework systems are also pre-piped and pre-wired, and connected to ceiling service panels to provide quick disconnections and reconnections. The heights of lab tables can be adjusted, just as sections can be removed or added. Rolling storage cabinets, located underneath the lab tables, can be easily relocated.
Tech stations along the exterior windows of the laboratory spaces are adjacent to the lab-bench areas. These tech stations can be easily converted to additional bench space by raising the tables. "The idea was to come to agreement on these basic principles with regards to laboratory casework and lab modules to create a 'generic' lab building that could be used by both institutions," Hombsch says. "In this way, they could also both economize by buying similar casework and equipment."
"Our design allows either MCW or CRI to accommodate any research project or protocols they develop," Hombsch concludes. "At the same time, in accordance with the project's goals and objectives, we created cost-effective design solutions to meet the goals of the research facility, and the individual needs of both institutional entities."
:: View Medical College of Wisconsin/ Children's Research Institute, Biomedical Research Building
HGA Contact: Julie Luers (612) 758-4000 e-mail JLuers@hga.com
Media Contact: Susan Evans, Evans Larson (612) 338-6999 e-mail susan@evanslarson.com