Construction of the Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories, an expansion to the Mudd/Levi biology complex, is on schedule for its final completion on June 1, 2013.
Construction for this $48 million construction project began in June 2011 and will contribute three floors of teaching labs and a floor of research labs to the Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience and BioPhysics departments.
Its top floor research labs are also on schedule for their completion date of July 1. In addition to its contributions to the natural sciences, the new Biology Wing has prioritized low energy usage as a major component of its design.
The entire project, including furniture, equipment, and design and project management costs, is expected to total about $65 million.
Travers Nelson, Program Manager of Design and Construction, noted that the project is on schedule and going according to plan.
“Work is substantially complete on the ground floor,” Nelson wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “JHU representatives, including faculty, and the architect, are walking through this week to “punch out” the work, meaning to review it and identify any oversights or work needing improvement.”
From now on, those involved in the project plan to “punch out” the building’s remaining floors approximately every ten days. In addition, the mechanical and electrical systems for the building are being tested for performance and operation in the presence of Johns Hopkins representatives and commissioning consultant.
Despite a slight delay caused by a change in local authority storm water management design requirements, construction has managed to stay on schedule.
“The change increased the amount of subsurface filtering gravel in the rain gardens, which are designed to retard, reduce, and improve the quality of rain water run-off from the site,” Nelson wrote in his email. “JHU was not required to comply with the change, but decided to do so, consistent with storm water management improvement efforts campus wide.”
Furniture will be brought into the building in June and July, and lab equipment and faculty offices in July and August.
The project remains on track with the budget that was approved by the Board of Trustees at the beginning of construction, which factored in the costs of building sustainable lab facilities. Davis Bookhart, Director of the Sustainability Office, attributes the building’s environmental components largely to the decisions made in the design process.
“Good decisions were made by [those in] the Arts & Sciences when designing the building,” Bookhart said. “They realized that investment up front has long-term pay offs.”
Bookhart is enthusiastic about the sustainable elements of the Undergraduate Teaching Labs.
“From a sustainability perspective this is one of the most exciting buildings we’ve built here ever,” he said. “This lab is perhaps one of the most efficient lab buildings, certainly on this campus, maybe in the country.”
The design of an efficient lab building is an accomplishment, according to Bookhart, because the many elements that lab buildings require make low energy use a challenge.
“A lab building is an extremely difficult building to construct from a sustainability perspective,” Bookhart said. “You need a lot of air flow, for example, like cooling and heating, which is necessary to keep the people safe from the inside.”
The building’s design aims to consume fifty percent less energy than the average energy consumption of other science buildings on campus.
“Personally it’s very exciting for me,” Bookhart said. “I think the project has exceeded [its initial sustainability goals]. We already knew going into the building process certain things we could look into to increase efficiency, and the integrated design process has allowed us to uncover creative things on design use and materials that we didn’t anticipate.”
Constant revision and improvements upon drafts of designs has allowed the building to achieve 67 percent efficiency over 104,400 gross square feet.
“The process is really important,” Bookhart said. “You start with designs, create models, and if you stop there then you’re finished. This lab is marked by idea that managers, designers, [members of the] Arts & Sciences all work together closely to continue to rethink designs and move things around and makes things even more efficient.”
From the time the initial plan was drafted to the creation of the construction documents, Bookhart speculated that the building probably increased in efficiency by another factor.
Students are in favor of having new biology labs on campus.
Sophomore Hannah Zimmerman, who is taking Biology and Biology Lab this semester, noted that she will appreciate the extra space that the new undergraduate labs will provide as well as the advantages of working in brand new facilities.
“The lab bench can be a little cramped when you have two sets of partners sharing it at the same time,” she said. “Also the labs can be pretty dirty, especially after years of students doing dissections.”
Freshmen who live near the construction site don’t find it particularly invasive either.
“I don’t notice the construction every day, but some mornings the noisy machinery can wake me up,” Georgie Koepke, a freshman living in AMR II, said. “If anything, the baseball team is more bothersome. For the most part, the construction noise has been pretty tame.”
The designs for the construction took health, safety and security, in addition to functionality and sustainability, into consideration.
“We want the building to be healthy, safe, secure, and efficient,” Brookhart said. “For example, there is a lot of glass on the front of the building so that there may be a lot of natural light inside. This beautiful view is important but, then again, it is an energy trade off because glass is not a good insulator.”
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