#PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS
Building’s Design Reflects Campus, Science Collaborations
In October 2014, Suffolk County Community College (SCCC) officially opened its new, $29.8-million William J. Lindsay Life Sciences Building.
The cutting-edge educational and research facility is aiming for LEED Gold certification, indicating the highest level of sustainability in design and construction. BBS Architects, Patchogue, N.Y., served as architect, interior designer and civil, mechanical and electrical engineer for the new building.
The Life Sciences Building is the first new academic structure completed on the campus in nearly 50 years. It will house programs for students pursuing biology, marine biology, chemistry, environmental science and nursing degrees. A rapidly growing enrollment in life sciences disciplines necessitated the construction of the new facility. Approximately 5,000 students will attend classes in the building throughout the spring semester beginning January 2015. The building will also allow for the expansion of science classes to include an additional 100 students in the spring and 300 students next fall.
“The college’s enrollment in life science disciplines has risen exponentially in recent years, outgrowing the former building,” said Rosa Gambier, SCCC’s Biology Department Chair. “The old life sciences building served approximately 4,700 students in the 2013-14 academic year, up from 2,700 in 2004-05. In the last three years, we could not meet demand because we didn’t have the space. This innovative edifice will allow us to increase the number of students taught and, along with our newly revised and cutting-edge curriculum, gives us the ability to greatly enhance the quality of education Suffolk County Community College provides. It is a superior facility for student research and both collaborative and hands-on learning. It will bring our department into the 21st century and prepare our students for the 22nd.”
“The $29.8-million, 63,000-sq-ft structure is designed to serve as a learning tool itself,” added BBS Principal Architect Roger Smith. “It incorporates pioneering sustainability and educational features, such as interactive boards displaying—in real-time—the building’s sustainability data and power performance. You can literally walk around and watch the building work.”
Architecture and site design
BBS won the commission in a competition that attracted numerous prominent design firms from across the nation.
“The architectural approach that convinced the client to select our design focused on five aspects of the new building,” said Smith. “These were the concept of a ‘building as a learning tool,’ expressed through technology and site design; visualizing the vocabulary of biology through architecture and programming; encouraging the interaction and exchange of ideas among students and faculty; incorporating the structure into the natural environment of the site; and implementing a high number of sustainable features into engineering and architecture of the facility.”
“The design team embarked to express the natural organization of organs and nerve systems in its approach to implementing the school’s program through interior layouts, architectural organization, traffic patterns and connections to the overall campus for the new building,” continued Smith. “They were inspired by the concept of a plexus and connecting nodes, which is represented in the design of the structure’s central rotunda and wings, as well as in the organization of hallways and building systems in the new school.”
The building creates a new identity for scientific education programs at the college by displaying the school’s inner works to passersby and visitors. It is designed to integrate its teaching functions with the campus circulation by utilizing a major pedestrian path from the south, leading to the main quadrangle, to encourage transit through the building by students and faculty from all disciplines. The overall program also includes construction of a new 314 sq ft astronomical observatory at a separate location.
The Life Sciences Building’s location and design reflect and enhance the existing pathways and spatial relationships already in place on campus. Taking advantage of the changing grade of the site, a north entrance will receive students and faculty coming from the Riverhead and Smithtown Science buildings at the second floor level. To the south, where the grade drops one full story, another entry serves students and faculty arriving from the parking area to the southeast and adjacent athletic facilities to the southwest at the first floor level.
“The architectural and planning concepts are fundamentally sustainable,” said Smith. “The east-west orientation of the building minimizes summer solar heat gain. The integration into the land contours reduces the exterior surface area, and the overall space efficiency minimizes the material and construction resources. The high efficiency mechanical and electrical systems are designed to provide safe and functional operation, while significantly minimizing energy use.”
The BBS engineering team critically analyzed the air change rates required for each type of the interior spaces and optimized the mechanical system to accommodate the findings.
Other sustainable features of the structure include the tight envelope and high levels of insulation, reducing thermal losses; natural storm water run-off management systems; high recycled content and locally sourced materials; and high-efficiency lighting system with occupancy sensors.
In addition, a rooftop photovoltaic system will generate 144 kW of electricity and provide more than 60 percent of the building’s electric needs, saving approximately $48,000 per year.
The school’s exterior brick veneer panels convey a sense of “earthen” physicality through the use of color, texture and pattern. This material reflects the look of existing brick campus buildings. However, in order to engage the mind of the observer, the façade features changing patterns. Aluminum and glass curtain wall surfaces the voids of the building, thus allowing high amounts of light to enter the interior.
Both the interior and the site location feature learning tools that relate to the building’s operations, design and function. The school’s interior houses kiosks and interactive boards displaying, in real-time, the building’s sustainability data and power and HVAC systems’ performance. The sustainability in site design is evident along the pedestrian paths and around the outdoor classrooms. The site features gardens, a contained drainage system and storm water collection swales with native, drought-resistant vegetation. Student gathering areas are located near the most interesting sustainable elements and main landscaping features of the site. The ecosystem of the site encourages study of nature.
The site design embraces the overall project concept in many ways. It provides a highly sustainable environment that employs native plant selections to minimize maintenance requirements and provide biodiversity and habitat for indigenous fauna. The drainage system, a combination of natural and artificial features, accommodates the Life Sciences Building and site as well as the main campus’ rainwater flows that currently enter the location. While designed to be sustainable and functional, this treatment also provides opportunities for educational experiences as displays of applied science. The functional purpose of the site, the way it is shaped and the use of native grasses, perennials, shrubs and trees represents a reinvigorated appreciation of the natural aesthetic required for current and future sustainable and reasonable development.
Interior design
The building is arranged with two wings around a central rotunda, which serves as both a transit and a gathering point for students. Each wing has a single laboratory corridor, which provides clear orientation as well as efficiency and visibility. The corridors feature active exhibits and serve as informal meeting places for students, activating the building as seen from the exterior.
The south-facing window wall has been designed to modulate and harvest natural light. Classroom spaces on the second and third floors feature internal glass walls to take advantage of light and views to the south. Seating opportunities in the corridors/public spaces provide settings for impromptu conversations or short breaks before entering classrooms.
The building’s layout provides a high degree of space efficiency. The two wing corridors provide direct access to all laboratory and support spaces. Stairways for egress at the ends of the two wings and the central open stair, designed for dramatic architectural impact, ensure safe and convenient access to all floors.
The simple circulation systems and central core rotunda, as well as the mixed locations of several scientific disciplines housed within the structure, encourage meetings and interaction among students and faculty. Additional informal meeting spaces along the laboratory corridors promote a dialogue and exchange of ideas among the building’s occupants.
The building’s first floor houses the main lobby, elevator shaft, three anatomy and physiology laboratories with prep rooms and 24 stations each, ranging in size from 1,214 to 1,331 sq ft, four flexible lecture halls ranging in capacity from 48 to 72 seats, faculty office, a 1,706-sq-foot student gathering space, 221 sq ft of corridor niche meeting spaces, and storage and utility rooms.
The lobby is designed as an indoor amphitheater cut into the slope of the building’s site. Classes can be taught in this space. The elevator shaft features interactive kiosks on each of the three building levels. The atrium video wall is made up of 16 NEC 46" LED ultra-narrow bezel monitors set up in a 4 x 4 ft grid.
The second floor houses general, marine and microbiology facilities. These include six labs ranging in size from 1,214 to 1,331 sq ft; prep rooms and assistants’ offices; a 630-sq-ft faculty office suite and three 80-sq-ft faculty offices; a 160-sq-ft biology walk-in cold storage room; student gathering niche; a 24-station student computer room; a 14-station student project room; and support facilities. Each of the six laboratories feature 24 stations.
The building’s third floor features two 1,214-sq-ft chemistry labs; two 1,214-sq-ft, 48-seat general classrooms; a 936-sq-ft, 24-station computer room; a 529-sq-ft conference room; a 613-sq-ft faculty lounge with a 221-sq-ft kitchenette; two faculty offices; a reception area for administrative offices; department management offices; student gathering areas; mechanical, electrical and storage rooms; and an outdoor vegetated roof. The building also houses four environmental rooms, ranging in size from 40 to 160 sq ft.
The interior also features numerous sustainable and recycled materials. These include 1,200 sq ft of an unusual natural bamboo veneer wallpaper, installed on the curved outside wall of the elevator shaft. This material was manufactured in Japan.
Laboratory spaces are designed using modular planning principles. Each space is essentially the same size to allow flexibility in layout and lab furniture components. Fixed functions such as sinks and fume hoods are located at the perimeter. Laboratory workstations include gas, air, power and water connections. The building’s mechanical system is sized to provide appropriate air changes for biology labs throughout the several life science disciplines. This solution reduces energy use.
The exterior aluminum composite wall panels are also utilized inside the atrium for visual continuity of the structure’s exterior and interior. The atrium features curved internal balconies with ½" tempered glass, stainless steel and an aluminum handrail system with maple wood veneer rails. Curved steel members support the balconies.
The project team faced several technical and logistical challenges during construction of the new Life Sciences Building. According to Senior Site Superintendent Mark Evans, with J. Petrocelli Contracting, these included a curved curtain wall and a complex steel structural frame that features curved members, the need to accommodate daily pedestrian traffic bordering the construction site, a significantly sloping site, and pre-existing site conditions that necessitated a high amount of new control fill material.
The structure features expansive curved exterior walls on the south and north sides. Due to the curvature of the central section of the building and the unusual 5" mullions between glaze panels, the support system for the exterior glass curtain wall was custom designed and manufactured. It features connecting clips welded to the building’s steel structure. Aluminum tubing, which supports the glass panels, is attached to the clips. On the south side of the building, the expansive glazed curtain wall is approximately 150 x 45 ft high. The glazing features energy-efficient low-e glass.
The building features concrete foundations and a steel structural frame. The foundation reaches up to 15 ft down on the north site of the building. During the excavation phase, the crews replaced the soil within the entire footprint of the building with control fill to ensure the required bearing capacity of the soil. Because the site slopes from north to south, the team installed an extensive shoring wall on north and east sides of the excavation site. The 300-ft long shoring system consisted of steel I-beam piles driven up to 30 ft down and connected by timber walls up to 15 ft high.
In addition to the glazed curtain wall, the building features contrasting aluminum panel sections and concrete masonry unit (CMU) and brick veneer exterior walls. In order to create a highly energy efficient building envelope, the designers created multilayered walls that comprise an internal CMU wall, 3" of a spray-on thermal insulation, a 2"-air barrier and the exterior brick veneer.
The building’s roof houses six fans that serve 12 fume hoods in the laboratories, as well as four smoke-purging fans. The rooftop systems also include six Trane cooling and heating units, each approximately 40 x 10 ft. Each unit services a dedicated section of the building. The interior also features 145 VAV hot water space heaters that supplement the rooftop-based units.
As part of the environmentally responsible construction process, Petrocelli sorted and recycled a significant portion of the construction debris. Lastly, the building is equipped with a Trane Building Management System that optimizes energy use and controls life safety systems. The building underwent a commissioning process, which ensures all systems operate correctly and efficiently.
