The Veterinary Biomedical and Research Building (VBRB) at Washington State Univ. (WSU) celebrates the significant achievements and contributions that
hundreds of small, often unknown academic
institutions make in the field of global research.
Located in a rural community of less than 6,000
residents, WSU attracts world-class research faculty. As public institutions nationwide compete
for limited resources, faculty and graduate students, the new building breaks through the challenges of a harsh climate, isolated location and
limited construction and operating dollars to
become the latest source of pride for the College
of Veterinary Medicine and a significant attractor for new faculty and research opportunities.
By paying close attention to the research done
at the facility, facilitating community within and
around the building and a focus on sustainable
and efficient performance, the VBRB earned a
High Honors Award in R&D Magazine’s 2014
Laboratory of the Year competition.
Design around research
The VBRB provides a dramatic new presence
for WSU; a major entrance to its emerging
six-building, 750,000-sf research complex and a
distinctive identity for the College of Veterinary
Medicine.
The building is split into research neighborhoods, a concept that came about as a discussion
in terms of how to organize the building in
response to a request from WSU to limit the
scale of the open lab space, according to Tim
Evans, lab design principal with SRG Partnership, Portland, Ore., and lead architect on the
project.
“The adjacent Biotechnology Building, which
was the first new building in this complex, was
designed with a very large open ballroom lab,”
In brainstorming with Josh
Meyers from Jacobs Consultancy,
Tarrytown, N. Y, the team decided
on alternating bands of open and
closed labs and offices as a way of
achieving a smaller scale of open
labs. This approach would bring
daylight and views deep inside the building, and
create research “neighborhoods” with visual
connections between zones and promote a sense
of collegiality. Support spaces paralleling the
open labs and the linear equipment corridors
connecting the neighborhoods would facilitate
movement while providing a designated loca-
tion for noisy, heat-producing equipment that
also requires standby power.
As most of the building’s research teams con-
duct live animal studies, mainly with rodents,
access to research animals was a program pri-
ority. The team addressed this need by locating
small, satellite vivaria on each of the four floors
above grade.
“This was a very important aspect of the
program,” says Evans. “We placed satellite vivaria
on each floor so they would be directly adjacent
to the research labs and the researchers working
in them. But the critical implication it had for
the design of the building is that those satellite
vivaria needed to have direct access via a service
elevator to the central basement-level vivarium,
which connects to the adjoining Biotechnology
Building vivarium and shares its highly auto-
mated cage wash facility.”
The most fundamental strategy the team
implemented, according to Evans, was in
designing the lab support spaces for a variety of
functions to allow changes in their use over time.
“WSU held steadfastly to the concept of flexibil-
ity, including not identifying the final locations
for the research teams, which helped to prevent
customization of the space for any one research-
er’s particular preferences,” says Evans. And this,
in the end, produced a highly flexible space ver-
sus customized space that could be easily adapt-
ed to meet any research team’s needs.
At a more detailed level, in the open labs, the
team custom designed two types of overhead
service carriers to provide the moveable lab
benches with utilities and linear fixtures for
ambient lighting when needed. The carriers’
lightweight aluminum extrusions and tension
cables minimize obstruction of daylight and
support the airy character of the labs and offices.
Building a deeper community
The theme for the VBRB building is “discovery
happens everywhere”. And as a firm, SRG Partnership strongly believes scientists are extremely
creative and benefit from opportunities from
unstructured interaction, according to Evans.
So, in response, the team created a variety of
A Shining Example for
Veterinary Science
With attention to researchers, their needs and the public eye, SRG Partnership
created an artistic example for future life science buildings.
West and north elevations of the Washington
State Univ. VBRB. Images: SRG Partnership
