Newark Laboratory

Center Aims to Merge Patient Care and Research

by Adrian MacDonald

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's new $75 million facility employs a complex design to accommodate advanced medical research and care.

Patients, clinicians, and researchers will enter the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's new cancer center in Newark through the same doors, underscoring one of most important goals of the $75 million project.

Getting clinicians and researchers to "bump into each other" throughout the day, and perhaps share ideas and insights on specific problems, is becoming a focus at cancer care centers throughout the country. The goal of that new focus in the medical community is for the two sides of the profession to collaborate more often, instead of working on their projects or patients in isolation.

"It has precedent," said David Schulz, the university's director of development on the project. "The Cancer Institute of New Jersey has the same model, and in fact collaboration does happen."

The new nine-story cancer center, set to open in July, is on one of the highest points in Newark and is visible for miles. The project called for a bold visual marker, said Steven Gifford, a principal at Hillier Architects of Princeton, N.J., which designed the building that has an undulating façade of glass, precast concrete, and white metal panel as well as an L-shaped fin that runs up the middle of the structure and extends above the roof like a sail.

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"It's futuristic, forward-looking in appearance," Gifford said. "The building has created a lot of excitement on campus."

The main, communal entrance on the third floor sets the tone, opening to a vast, glass-enclosed atrium that merges the second through the fifth floors into a single light-filled space connected by stairways and platforms.

"It's designed for efficient circulation - no one wants to walk farther than they have to," Gifford said. "But the atrium makes people pass through the same space and bump into each other during their daily functions."

The building's spaciousness wasn't always part of the plan. When the university began the planning process in 1999, it was a much smaller, 68,000-sq.-ft. facility.

By 2002, when it finalized the plans, the scope grew to 215,000 sq. ft. within the same 25,000-sq.-ft. footprint. Two grants from the National Institutes of Health, one for $3 million and another for $3.7 million, also were instrumental in expanding some of the research facilities at the top of the building, Schulz said.

The bigger size also led to a more complex design and construction effort. The university contracted New York-based Turner Construction as construction manager and Hillier as the architect from the outset. Turner worked from its office in Somerset, N.J.

"It's almost a design-build approach, even through it's not a design-build contract," Schulz said.

The planning and design phase included nine months to a year of swapping the building plans between the architects, engineers, and various contractors, with a heavy focus on the coordination of mechanical and electrical systems, said Steve Annese, Turner's senior project manager. Each subcontractor hand-drew overlays onto digitized plans and consulted at the end to make sure the systems worked together.

"You have a meeting to make sure that everything fits above the ceiling," he added. "You must go floor by floor, and it's a painstaking process."

The systems must share space with other piping and equipment snaking throughout the building, Annese said.

"A state-of-the-art laboratory such as this also includes oxygen, vacuum, nitrogen, compressed air, natural gas, and medical waste, all on different piping systems," he added. "It's just the natural complexities of building lab space."

Each floor has unique requirements. The first floor houses both a pharmacy and a radiation oncology facility featuring vaults, radiation equipment, and radiation isolation shielding. The second and third floors mix administrative offices with specialized clinical space for medical exams, infusions, and a wellness center. The building's fourth floor is shell space, awaiting funds for future development, while the fifth is reserved for the building's mechanical systems.

Another twist appears on the sixth, seventh, and eighth floors, which house the laboratory spaces and use open-floor designs to maximize light diffusion. The sixth floor has a proteomics lab for the study of proteins, while the seventh is for tissue cultures and the eighth has laser laboratories.

On the ninth floor, in a somewhat isolated space, is the vivarium, an animal testing facility that will be used almost exclusively for mice. The sterile space has epoxy coatings on the walls, floors, and ceilings. The doors are of corrosive-free plastic and the door frames are made of stainless steel.

"You can't have any crevices," Annese said. "Germs live in the crevices."

The vivarium floor's double-height design allows for an interstitial space above the drywall ceiling to house extensive mechanical and electrical piping and equipment, with access provided by a catwalk.

The building also has extensive air circulation systems. Where typical office buildings might intake 10 to 20 percent of outside air and recycle the rest, 90 to 100 percent of the air that circulates in a medical facility like the cancer center comes from the outside, with minimal recycling, in order to maximize the amount of fresh air in the building's interior Annese said.

The main heating and air-conditioning systems are fed by the university's central water heating and chiller plant. The air-handling system includes a heat-recovery unit on the roof.

The heat recovery system involves passing air that is leaving the building over special coils that contain glycol, which is a low-freezing temperature liquid that absorbs heat. The glycol then circulates to the main air handlers on the fifth-floor mechanical level and preheats the incoming air.

The complex design and installation of the systems was integral to freeing up room for the center's open interior spaces, especially its multilevel atrium. The design calls for alcoves and lounge areas with comfortable chairs throughout the atrium, creating places where people can go for both formal or informal discussions.

These communal areas are also the key to linking the clinical facilities on the lower three floors with the research laboratories on the top levels - and hopefully will help to draw both researchers and patients to the facility, Hillier's Gifford said.

"They want people to come and receive health care, people with problems to solve," he added. "The building is a dramatic statement that has the ability to help UMDNJ attract patients."

Key Players

Owner: University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark, N.J.

Architect: Hillier Architects, Princeton, N.J.

Construction Manager: Turner Construction, New York

Structural Engineer: Greenman-Pedersen, Scranton, Pa.

Mechanical Engineer: Bard, Rao + Athanas, Watertown, Mass.

Electrical: Allan Briteway Electrical Contractors, Hillsborough, N.J.; Century Electric, Cedar Knolls, N.J.; Mehl Electric, Pearl River, N.Y.

Masonry: Cadd Inc., Kinnelon, N.J.

Steel: Champion Steel Erectors, Plainfield, N.J.; Lynchburg Steel, Monroe, Va.; Archer Steel Erecting, Clarksburg, N.J.

Concrete: Macedos Construction, Flemington, N.J.; Universal Concrete, Douglasville, Pa.; Cornell & Co., Woodbury, N.J.

Millwork, Drywall, Ceilings: Component Assembly Systems, Eatontown, N.J.

Roofing: Eagle One Roofing, Astoria, N.Y.

Interior Demo, Hoist: JTG & Son Scaffolding, Linden, N.J.

Metal Panel and Louver: Kenneth J. Herman Inc., Amityville, N.Y.

Fire Protection: S.A. Comunale Co., Westville, N.J.

Curtain Wall, Windows: Union County Plate Glass, Union, N.J.

Sitework: Vollers Excavating & Construction, North Branch, N.J.