Designing research space in the DRC

Imagine standing inside a research laboratory that stretches more than half the length of a football field.

Now, repeat that image 13 times.

That’s what visitors will find on seven levels of UNMC’s new Durham Research Center.

“One of the unique goals of this project was to develop open labs to accommodate a culture for interdisciplinary research efforts,” said Sean Towne, an architect with Research Facilities Design (RFD), the firm that designed the laboratory spaces and systems for the building.

Although HDR Architecture, Inc. of Omaha provided overall architectural and engineering services for the research building, RFD was hired to do the laboratory planning. Based in San Diego, RFD is a 20-year-old architectural firm specializing exclusively in the programming and design of teaching and research laboratory facilities for college and university, industry and governmental clients.

Inside the building, architects designed 190-foot long open labs that can be divided into separate lab spaces quickly and with minimal cost. “The goal is to keep the labs open, but the space can be separated into smaller lab units for very little cost,” Towne said.

Sean Towne, an architect with Research Facilities Design, helped design the laboratory spaces in the Durham Research Center.

In the past, architects have often customized lab space in research buildings. Towne said. That wasn’t the case with the Durham Research Center, he said, which was designed for maximum flexibility and longtime use. In fact, when planning for the building began in 1999, no one knew who or precisely what type of research would be housed in the building.

In addition, the laboratory support zones were designed on each floor to accommodate specialized environments and equipment. Large freezers used by scientists are grouped together in several rooms on each floor and cooled with chilled water. As a result, the energy used to control these environments can be minimized for long term operational savings.

“The Durham Research Center is a very important project,” Towne said. “By its volume and researcher capacity, it’s a significant commitment to high quality research space. It’s a facility that any high-level researcher coming to UNMC would be glad to see.”