GRUNAU WORKS ON THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OF WISCONSIN CHILDREN'S RESEARCH INSTITUTE BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH FACILITY

MCW/CRI Biomedical Research Facility Grunau is working on the Medical College of Wisconsin Children’s Research Institute Biomedical Research Facility, located in Wauwatosa, WI. The sleek $94 million dollar building provides shared research space as well as two wings of laboratories, one for the health system’s new Children’s Research Institute and the other for the Medical College’s Biomedical Research Building. The 310,000-square-foot facility includes wet bench space, office space and research support, a secure loading dock, conference rooms, cafeteria and telecommunications equipment space. Completion is scheduled for December 2006. Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin’s Max McGee National Research Center for Juvenile Diabetes and Birth Defects Research Center will be relocated to the new building. The additional space is intended to support the Medical College’s Cancer Center, Center for Bio preparedness and Infectious Disease, and Center for Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering, as well as facilities for genetics research.

Main plumbing and heating piping rack at the 1st floor and basement levels.  These were tight to the deck above, so as to maintain proper clearance for the maintenance personnel on the catwalk (not shown in this picture). Grunau's part in the project is the installation of mechanical (HVAC and plumbing) systems. This portion of the project includes layers upon layers of ductwork and piping.  The vivarium space, a holding area for live research animals, requires stainless steel piping for an animal water system, complex exhaust and decontamination systems, and finely tuned systems to control temperatures, humidity, and air changes – all of which are critical to the animals in the vivarium. Lab construction is always complex, but in this case the vivarium has added significantly to the complexity of the MEP systems. “This job is taking layers and layers of ductwork and piping,” said Ron Kwiatkowski, Vice President of design/build for Grunau. “It surpasses anything I have ever seen.”

Typical coordination among ductwork, plumbing, heating piping, and electrical for an area of rooms (here, they are called suites – which typically include 6 animal holding rooms and 2 procedure rooms).  This is all now seen above in the interstitial space. Typical coordination among ductwork, plumbing, heating piping, and electrical in the basement level.

Chilled water pumps in the basement mechanical space.

Typical labeling of the piping systems, and pipe rack takeoffs in the interstitial space. Fitting in the Crews with approximately 60 paired animal holding rooms and procedure rooms to build, and all the intricate systems to knit into the interstitial spaces, the physical requirements of getting crews into the various spaces when they needed to be there were also a large concern. “We broke down the job into pods of animal holding and procedure rooms,” Kwiatkowski said. “A pod is maybe eight or 10 rooms and we need roughly 500 hours to do a pod of maybe 60 ft. by 60 ft. So how many people can you put in there?” The original plan was to put four people in each pod, but they had to work on lifts to get into the interstitial space. When it turned out that only three people would fit comfortably in the pods, it became clear that it would take four to five weeks to complete each pod. Kwiatkowski added that he is planning to keep the same personnel on all of the pod work, hoping to pick up some time once the learning curve is out of the way.

Corridor below the interstitial space. Interstitial space above the corridor.

Although mockups are commonly done of highly specialized spaces such as surgical suites, laboratories and hospital patient rooms, the ones done on this project were critical. Users of the new facility needed to try a room on for size and make any necessary alterations before construction began.“We did mock-ups of one animal holding room and one procedure room,” Kwiatkowski said. In early December, departments were still evaluating the elements of the rooms’ design and layout, tweaking details to make the rooms suit their needs. Kwiatkowski said that a few changes have been made, including moving air distribution devices to allow sprinkler heads to be placed in certain locations.“That’s the point of building the mock-up, to get these changes made before you start constructing the rooms,” he said. The small site, which is bordered by existing buildings and one of the busy medical campus’ main thoroughfares, has presented its own set of construction issues.“We have had to coordinate deliveries closely because we have hardly any lay down or storage area,” McNamee said. “Deliveries have to be timely so that materials go straight from the trucks into the building.” He said that the presence of an existing vivarium in one of the nearby buildings has brought up issues of noise control because sudden noises and-or vibrations can bother the animals. “We can make some noise, just not vibrations,” he added. Grunau utilized the Hilti hanger embeds (up to 1-1/2” diameter rod) and Hilti fire cans.  The vibration concerns had an impact on material handling, the demolition of an existing parking garage and particularly in the construction of the foundation for the new building. Drilling rather than driving piles solved the foundation issue, and in other areas treading lightly with materials and demolitions has done the trick. Even the process of bidding this job was out of the ordinary.“This was not a traditional bid process,” Kwiatkowski said. He said that an extensive interview process was used, which resulted in Grunau being brought on early in the planning stages of the project.“ We said; don’t just bring us on as an installer. Make us part of the decision making team,” Kwiatkowski added. “We did a lot of legwork up front to sell this to Gilbane and they saw that the drawings were not going to be ready to bid on their schedule.”

Main stair built by Grunau Metals. Grunau's prefab (lean initiative) – plumbing.  Lavatory, urinal, and water closet prefab at a bathroom on the 3rd floor.

Space in between the air handling units.  What you see are mostly chilled water coil connections.  This penthouse is very maintenance friendly – there is a big difference between the penthouse and the basement mechanical space. Steam control station for the six heat exchangers.

Parts of this headline rely on extracts from "BiomMedical Research Building / Coordination and Mock-Ups / Key in Lab Construction" by Elaine Schmidt, from Midwest Construction 2/2006.

Grunau Company’s team of skilled professionals designs, installs and services mechanical systems, including HVAC, plumbing, temperature controls, process piping, fire protection and specialized electrical systems. Grunau Metals, a division of the company, offers specialty metal design, fabrication, installation and service. Grunau's fabrication shop is equipped to custom fabricate anything from decorative to industrial applications, using materials from carbon steel to aluminum. Grunau’s staff of professional engineers are certified to design a wide variety of mechanical systems and specialty metals projects. For more information visit their website at www.grunau.com Back If you would like more information on the APi Group, please fill out our users form.