Pharmaceutical Research Laboratory/Office Addition

HEA recently completed the M/E/P design for a two-story, 45,000 sf laboratory/office addition to a research building on a large pharmaceutical campus. The first floor contains offices; the second floor contains laboratories. Notably, the first floor was designed to be flexible so spaces can easily be re-purposed into laboratories in the future.

The HVAC design included over 250 tons of cooling (including associated chillers, piping, pumping, etc.). A VAV HVAC system with hot water reheat serves the first-floor offices, while the second-floor laboratories are served by three custom-built rooftop air handling units designed for extremely sensitive and tolerant labs. Additional work included a new electric service, a new DDC system extended back to the campus-wide BAS, and new fume hoods (each independently exhausted). Process gas work included new compressed air, receivers, desiccant dryers; liquid nitrogen cylinders with a change-over system; vacuum pumps, receivers; an isolator system with compressed air, blow-offs; and a reverse osmosis/deionized water system including process water.

Throughout the project, HEA participated in weekly construction calls to field questions and accommodate owner-requested design changes. One notable example involved changing the HVAC design post-bid to accommodate steam instead of natural gas (as specified in the pre-bid design). To accommodate this, HEA designed a new steam and high-pressure condensate system that included a condensate pump skid, expansion, pressure reducing stations, hot water heat exchangers, humification systems, and a pure steam generator for processes that sterilize autoclaves and stainless steel process piping. Another example involved an owner-requested change to increase lab ventilation requirements after equipment was ordered. To address this, HEA incorporated new fan filter HEPA units to account for the additional required circulation.