Lab of the Year: New Construction
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Laboratory buildings, west elevation. Shown are the buildings marked 10 and 11 on the campus plan, with the data center at the far right and the mosque at the far left. Another pair of similarly scaled labs exists beyond the mosque. Photo: Sam Fentress.
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The Project:
King Abdullah Univ. of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. Multi-building campus
encompassing 5.5 million ft2 of facilities (including 4.02 million ft2 of
"conditioned area" and 2.1 million ft2 of labs) on a 100-acre site. Budget withheld by
client request. This massive, LEED Platinum project achieved a state-of-the-art science campus on
an extremely tight time schedule. Its intelligent campus planning, high laboratory quality,
exemplary level of sustainability, aesthetic sensitivity to the cultural context, excellent team
coordination and speed of execution all contributed to the judges’ decision to designate the
project as Laboratory of the Year: New Construction for 2011.
The Team:
HOK (architect, lab planner, interior designer, lead MEP engineer, lead structural engineer,
landscape architect, master planner); Oger International, Paris (architect of record); R.G. Vanderweil Engineers, Boston (MEP/fire protection engineer); Affiliated Engineers Inc., Seattle
(MEP engineer/energy modeling); Walter P. Moore, Houston (structural engineer/special structures); LJA Engineering, Houston (civil engineer); Front Inc., New York City (building envelope consultant); Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (commissioning agent, project manager); RWDI, Guelph, Ontario (environmental/daylighting/wind consultant); Shen Milsom & Wilke Inc., Chicago (AV/acoustics consultant); VitaTech Engineering, Fredericksburg, Va.(EMF shielding consultant); Colin Gordon and Associates, San Bruno, Calif. (acoustical/vibration consultant); Abbie Gregg Inc., Tempe, Ariz. (cleanroom consultant); Agritechnove Inc., St. Anselme, Quebec (greenhouse consultant);
Saudi Oger Ltd., Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (general contractor).
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The KAUST campus master plan. Key: 1, town center; 2, university center; 3, research lab; 4,
research lab; 5, library; 6, campus mosque; 7, commons and dining hall; 8, engineering sciences
building; 9, applied mathematics; 10, research lab; 11, research lab; 12, high-bay lab; 13,
greenhouse; 14, data center; 15, research park; 16, administration building; 17, conference
center/museum; 18, auditorium; 19, parking garages; 20, pedestrian spine; 21, solar towers. Not
shown are planned residential neighborhoods to the north and west of the property. The Red Sea is
situated at the left of the plan (not shown). Plan: HOK. |
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The Users:
KAUST is a purpose-built, international graduate research university with a projected maximum student population of 2,000. Faculty, researcher and staff occupancy is projected at a maximum of ~3,400, with a total surrounding community of 20,000. The student population for the inaugural year was 374, with a faculty of 72. Research focuses on energy, water, environment, and food and
agriculture. Centers of investigation include catalysis; clean combustion; computational bioscience; geometric modeling and scientific visualization; plant stress genomics; solar and
photovoltaics engineering; water desalination and reuse; advanced membranes and porous materials; and Red Sea research. Each “center” typically consists of eight to 10 faculty members, 40 to 50 graduate students, research scientists and engineers, postdocs, and visiting researchers and staff.
The Schedule:
The lead architecture firm was awarded the job in late 2006. Concept design began in Feb. 2007, followed by schematic design and design development in May/June. Lab fit design began in January 2008; a year later, lab fit out began. The university’s grand opening was held in Sept. 2009, making for a 33-month project from the award to initial occupancy.
The Goals:
The mission of KAUST is to establish a new age of scientific achievement—reminiscent of the golden age of Islamic science in the 7th to 15th centuries—to create a new “House of Wisdom” on a site bridging the Red Sea and the desert. In addition to the campus’s research, support and administration buildings, a community of single- and multi-family residences will be created to the north and west, as well as a “town center” with retail and other services. A conference center/hotel, golf course and research park are also part of the master plan. (Only the university itself was judged in the LOY project.)
The client had four main priorities:
- Create a world-class institution that attracts the best talent from around the world.
- Create a truly global institution through collaboration and partnerships with the best
research organizations in the world.
- Create a highly collaborative environment that encourages innovation at all levels.
- Create a university in which the physical environment models the sustainable research mission.
Many significant challenges were embedded in the project. Due to the national imperative to diversify the economy beyond oil, the King was committed to personally overseeing the birth of the university within his lifetime, mandating an accelerated planning and construction schedule. The vast scale and fast schedule required cross-disciplinary international teams of clients, designers, lab specialists, engineers and industry manufacturers to be organized, working in parallel.
Since the program and end users were not set, research facilities had to accommodate the full spectrum of modern scientific research, including highly environmentally controlled spaces. Expert international panels of distinguished researchers and academics were recruited to serve as “surrogate users” during program definition.
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Typical lab floor. Key: 1, labs; 2, open to below; 3, PI office suite; 4, solar tower; 5, open office; 6, tea/break area; 7, conference; 8, balcony; 9, bridge; 10, service elevator. Plan: HOK. |
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The local climate is extremely hot but also humid and salt-laden, due to proximity to the sea. Nevertheless the highest degree of sustainability was requested, mirroring the expected level of research in energy and environmental issues.
To attract top researchers to this remote location and start-up institution, a vibrant living
environment was needed. Quality-of-life factors were thus a priority, not just in the workplace
but also for the surrounding planned community. To a greater degree than ever before in the
nation, research was envisioned as collaborative, within the university and with other institutions
and private industry. Research ideas are intended to be supported through rapid commercialization
as much as possible.
The Solutions:
The defining architectural/engineering idea for KAUST is that all structures are conceptually
linked as a “meta building,” served from a common base. Buildings are connected to each other and to the ground through a single 8-m high plinth constructed of regional limestone. Making the campus compact addresses the formidable climate while improving user proximity. An architectural palette of terra cotta, glass and stainless steel unites the enclosure, with a monumental roof spanning the building masses.
A continuous pedestrian spine bisects and connects the lab buildings, which consist of four similarly sized two-wing structures—two buildings on each side of a central commons and dining hall. Also occupying the center of the campus are a large library, the campus mosque, an administration building, a conference center/museum, a freestanding auditorium, and buildings for
applied mathematics and engineering sciences.
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The pedestrian spine is passively conditioned through use of a solar tower (right), operating through convection to draw air through the center of the paired lab buildings. The un-airconditioned space remains comfortable. Photo: Sam Fentress
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The spine extends beyond the research facilities to connect to the town center at the north,
and the technology incubator buildings at the south. High-bay space and a research greenhouse have been included on the south side of the site as well. Water features, judicious landscaping and parking garages complete the campus.
Research buildings are generic, with large, open “lab neighborhoods” surrounding a three-story atrium and monumental staircase. PI offices at building ends have views to the sea or desert landscapes. Ample use of interior glass allows easy visibility into labs from corridors; most movable wall partitions that divide individual labs are also glazed. A series of elevated open-air bridges and shaded balconies provides connections at multiple levels.
In the large, modular lab neighborhoods, main utility distribution and partial interstitial
walkways are situated at the perimeter, creating a 6-m “high hat” area in the center of each
neighborhood. The 48 neighborhoods—12 per lab building—were planned on a standard 3.3- x 3.3-m grid, allowing casework to be laid out either north-south or east-west. MEP infrastructure is fully integrated with the modular design; initial services to each neighborhood are basic, with provision for additional services to be added as the site is developed.
A custom casework system consists of a limited number of interchangeable components, working
with modular lab walls in a “kit of parts” fashion. Utility chases are pre-wired and pre-piped in
modular segments for easy connection to lab services, distributed via overhead carriers or vertical
drops. Floors contain a grid of preset openings for lab sink waste.
Below the common plinth, the lower level is dedicated to utility and service distribution, and
connects all buildings to supply and waste docks. A central warehouse handles incoming equipment
and materials; materials can be requested by an online system for just-in-time delivery, with waste managed in a similar fashion.
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This chromatography lab shows the typical “kit of parts” casework approach, as well as overhead utility service. Photo: Sam Fentress
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The Highlights:
Achieving LEED Platinum, at speed and on a grand scale in an extreme climate, required a creative and multifaceted approach. The university is the initial project under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian chapter of the World Green Building Council, which will work with knowledge gained to develop regionally specific, environmentally progressive strategies.
Highlights of the design include:
- Natural habitat protection/preservation. A 50-m buffer zone limits construction activity to
protect marine habitats.
- An alternative campus transportation to reduce CO2 emissions.
- Solar towers that create passive ventilation along the pedestrian spine. Buildings were
oriented to limit harsh eastern/western exposure and take advantage of prevailing winds.
- 16,567 m2 of PV arrays, producing 4 mW of renewable energy. Eventually a large
"solar farm" is planned for energy research, with capacity to plug into the energy grid.
- 4,134 m2 of solar thermal panels for hot water production.
- Highly efficient MEP systems and other measures, combining to reduce energy costs by ~27% (vs.
ASHRAE 90.1-2004 standards). Chilled beams, heat recovery wheels, displacement ventilation, smart
lighting controls, variable frequency drives and low-flow ducts were all incorporated.
- Wastewater treatment: 100% treated onsite, meeting 100% of irrigation needs. Native vegetation
and adaptive planting reduce irrigation demand.
- Water-efficient appliances/equipment, reducing potable water use by ~40%.
- Recycled-content building materials (about 20% of total materials).
- Nearly 100% FSC-certified wood.
- About 38% of building materials locally sourced.
- Nearly 80% of construction waste recycled and diverted from landfills.
Another notable feature of the project is its multiplicity of core labs, which create
appropriate homes for sophisticated scientific instrumentation, serving the varied sciences at the
university.
Core labs enhance KAUST
The design of KAUST’s core labs was largely driven by the need to accommodate highly sophisiticated instrumentation as well as critical team adjacencies. Highlights of the core labs include:
- Center for Deep Computing Research & Supercomputing Facilities. The fastest supercomputer in the Middle East and one of the world’s most powerful, this facility is capable of 222 teraflops, or 222 trillion floating point operations/sec.
- Advanced Computation & Visualization Facility. CORNEA is an immersive, sixsided virtual reality facility that gives students and researchers the ability to turn data into 3-D interactive structures.
- Imaging and Characterization Lab. This multimodality core facility supports biological sciences as well as physical sciences, providing instrumentation for visualizing surfaces and molecules as well as nanostructures and devices, down to the individual-atom level. Isolated slabs were provided for vibration control.
- NMR Lab. KAUST’s is the first NMR lab in the world to have ultra-high-field NMR spectrometers in both the solution state (950 MHz) and solid state (850 MHz wide bore). To accommodate high-field NMRs, nonferrous materials were utilized.
- Advanced Nanofabrication Lab. This core facility integrates classic semiconductor tools and processes with biological, chemical and medical substrates to support research in electronic and photonic devices, MEMS, advanced materials processing and biotechnology.
- Analytical Chemistry Core. Set up for spectroscopy, chromatography and mass spec, as well as trace metals analysis, wet chemistry and surface analysis.
- Biosciences and Bioengineering. Genomic and proteomics labs for the study of cellular molecules for DNA sequencing and genetic analysis, as well as investigation of cellular processes.
- Coastal and Marine Resources Core Lab. This facility is dedicated to research and the development of novel oceanographic instrumentation. Direct access to the Red Sea allows for ease of field work, as well as testing and development of new apparatuses.
- Workshops. All major facilities are complemented by a central machine, electronics, metrology and glassblowing shop.
The core facilities give KAUST a key advantage in developing partnerships, drawing outside research funding, and providing increased opportunity for publication of findings in scientific journals. Many tools can be accessed and used remotely by research partners.
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Open office space looks into the labs. The open writeup spaces adjoin and overlook a series of three-story atriums, integrating writeup with communal activity but still keeping it closely linked to the associated labs. Photo: Sam Fentress
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The Results:
Not surprisingly, this monumental project has garnered multiple awards, including the 2010 Top Ten Green Projects award from the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment; the 2010 International Architecture award and 2010 Green Good Design award from the Chicago Athenaeum; and an Honor award from the AIA St. Louis chapter.
More pertinent to the mission, users and potential recruits are enthusiastic. “Visitors are
extremely impressed by the quality of the lab, the adequate location of the equipment in a very precise way, the ergonomy of all the equipment locations and so on. When students visit the labs, they are really motivated to come,” says Jean Marie Basset, director of the Catalysis Center.
Lab of the Year judges complimented not only the lab’s design but also its speed of execution and its high level of successful coordination. Richard Rietz, independent lab planner, Helena, Mont., says, “The 30-month schedule and construction starting three months into the project is almost unbelievable for a project of this scale. Many institutions take five to 10 years to do a project of only 1/50 of this scale.
“Surrogate users, interdisciplinary centers, exceptionally large laboratories, a plethora of
core labs, planning concurrent with design and world-class expectations—normally any one of these challenges is difficult. To do it all at once, and to develop and detail all the components of a universal lab neighborhood at the same time, is a remarkable programming achievement.”
Barry Shiel, associate principal, Payette, Boston, says other facility designers can take
valuable lessons from KAUST, which can be applied at a much more modest scale. “Energy costs for building access and public circulation were effectively eliminated through the use of shade and natural ventilation, driven by the solar chimneys. Finding ways to segregate these areas and relax the acceptable comfort range in these spaces can provide benefit to all projects.”
The Contact:
Bill Odell, FAIA, senior VP/director, Science+Technology, HOK, bill.odell@hok.com.
