Best of 2004 Project of the Year

When the National Institute of Standards and Technology sought to create its new Advanced Measurement Laboratory, its vision left no room for error. After nearly ten years of design and 36 months of construction, HDR and Clark/Gilford carried out the mission to perfection and earned Mid-Atlantic Construction's Project of the Year award.

Perfection is a goal that many architects and contractors aim for in their projects, but in the case of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Advanced Measurement Laboratory project, perfection wasn't merely an aspiration, it was an expectation.

For more than 100 years, NIST has developed the measurements and standards necessary for the United States to be a leader in technology. With the creation of the $184 million Advanced Measurement Laboratory in Gaithersburg, Md., NIST looked to further hone its ability to conduct sophisticated measurements and be more globally competitive.

Creating a facility that allows scientists to successfully work at subatomic and nano levels required progressive architectural designs, well-planned schedules and careful coordination among the various team members.

By achieving its lofty goals on time and on budget, the project caught the attention of Mid-Atlantic Construction's Best of 2004 awards program jury and earned it the title of Project of the Year.

"The construction effort on this project is phenomenal," one judge said. "I've never seen a job like this. It's more complicated than anyone will ever see or know because it is a clean-room facility. Everything had to be sterilized onsite - the tools, the people - everything. It took teamwork and intense coordination to get it done."

The 536,500-sq.-ft. facility houses hundreds of labs in its five wings with varied and sometimes conflicting purposes. The AML includes 187 instrument lab modules and 151 metrology lab modules.

Specialty areas within the AML include 12 precision temperature-control labs that are accurate up to .01 degree Celsius; 36 precision temperature-control labs that are accurate up to .1 degree Celsius; 27 extremely low-vibration laboratories; several labs with humidity fluctuations of no more than 1 percent; and a 33,000-sq.-ft. clean-room facility that is Class 100, upgradeable to Class 10.

Achieving that level of precision created a daunting challenge for Alexandria, Va.-based architect and engineer HDR.

"When researchers first told us they wanted spaces designed within this building with temperatures so tightly controlled that they couldn't fluctuate more than 1/100th of a degree Celsius, we thought it was a typo," said Ahmad Soueid, principal and senior vice president at HDR.

Meeting those demands would require extensive mechanical and electrical systems. Ultimately, the contract included a nearly $56 million mechanical package and a $22 million electrical package. One hundred and thirty-five custom air-handling units and nearly 2.3 million lbs. of ductwork were needed to keep airflow high enough to maintain temperature, humidity and air quality controls.

The 12 precision temperature-control rooms would require 300 air changes per hour, while the clean-room facility called for 600 air changes per hour.

In addition to meeting those demands, HDR had to find ways to make all of these systems co-exist without interfering with each other. Very high levels of air exchange can cause mechanical vibration and acoustical noise. Liquid cooling systems can induce vibration, while heating systems can create electromagnetic fields.

"Managing expectations of the owner, looking at the conflicting requirements and coming up with a solution that would give them what they need, that was the biggest challenge of all," Soueid said.

HDR and NIST scientists worked for nearly 10 years, starting in 1993, to find solutions. The team conducted multiple experiments and built mock-up lab modules to test the accuracy of its designs. Manufacturers were brought in to prove that they could achieve the precise temperature controls inside the mock-up lab modules.

HDR also developed innovative design concepts, including extremely low-vibration labs that are built on top of deep pits in the ground and lifted by a system of air springs to reduce ambient vibration.

While its designs were advanced, HDR tried to simplify the design wherever possible. The design called for mostly common materials, including the air-spring system, which is modeled after similar systems used in large trucks.

"If you look at the building itself, it's not that sophisticated," Soueid said. "It's very intricate, but it's made out of components that are readily available."

By 1996, a design was well under way, but Congress pulled back funding and progress was stalled on the project until 2000. When the project began to move forward again, a joint venture between Bethesda, Md.-based Clark Construction Group and Beltsville, Md.-based Gilford Corp. was awarded the contract to serve as general contractor. Gilford served as a 10 percent partner in the deal.

Years of design gave way to months of planning and careful coordination between the various team members to complete the project within a tight 36-month time frame. While work was under way on the high-precision labs, significant amounts of mechanical and electrical systems needed to be installed in a carefully coordinated and timely fashion.

"We had to build this job with the mindset of what we needed to do to get the mechanical systems and electrical systems online as soon as possible," said Joe Hogan, project manager for Clark Construction. "The structure and finishes became secondary."

Hogan said the team worked to quickly establish the interstitial spaces, which housed the mechanical and electrical systems, above the lab modules so that work could go on in both spaces simultaneously. In some cases, the team used temporary support of walls before pouring the roof structure on the underground metrology buildings to help get other facets of the work done early.

The project's mechanical subcontractor, John J Kirlin of Rockville, Md., also found ways to save time. Sections of ductwork, up to 30 ft. long, were prefabricated offsite by Stromberg Metal Works of Beltsville, Md., brought to the location and put in place. Likewise, large sections of piping were also preassembled before being installed.

"Part of the uniqueness of this job was that it forced us as contractors to think outside the box in how to build it," Hogan said.

Meanwhile, building out the lab modules required significant precision. Metal skin panels overlaying 4-in.-thick phenolic insulation had to be installed perfectly to prevent air leakage and preserve temperature controls. No metal could penetrate the lab modules from the panels because that could also compromise thermal control.

Clean rooms were built in a clean environment from the onset. The further into the process of constructing the clean room, the more stringent the cleanliness became. As the labs were completed, craftsmen wore body suits and all of their tools had to be wiped sanitary clean to work in the space.

"It has to be a concept of building clean in order to get the certification," Hogan said.

Despite careful planning and execution, design changes did have to be made because of budgetary concerns and in response to input from NIST scientists. Despite the time constraints and changes, the project finished on schedule. During testing of the facilities, the labs successfully achieved their stringent requirements, in many cases exceeding them.

It was a relief to Hogan and his crew.

"The mock-ups preformed well, but it was still an unknown whether it would work or not because it was not the exact same design layout," Hogan said. "As it turns out, it was a tremendous success, but as we were building it, it was an unknown."

But Chris Conley, project manager and contracting officer's technical representative for NIST, said he was confident everything would come together.

"We knew we'd get it right," he added. "We had a good team on this job from the government standpoint and the A&E firm and the construction people."

Owner: NIST
Architect/Engineer: "HDR, Inc."
General Contractor": Clark/Gilford a Joint Venture
Mechanical Contractor: John J Kirlin
Electrical Contractor: Singleton Electric
Concrete Contractor: Clark Concrete Co.
Drywall Contractor: "C.J. Coakley Co., Inc."
Structural Steel Contractor: Globe Iron
Curtainwall Contractor: PCC Inc.

Click her for the Institutional-Award of Merit

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