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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

BIM helps in Kansas Bioscience Authority Venture Accelerator Construction

Building Information Modeling is coming up as a great assistant in the Kansas Bioscience Authority Venture Accelerator Construction located within the Kansas Bioscience Park in Olathe, Kansas. This will be the first building on the Kansas Bioscience Authority (KBA) campus, establishing a progressive, high-tech, innovative architectural context for the entire park using BIM technology.

The KBA was created by the Kansas Economic Growth Act of 2004 with the sole purpose of advancing the state’s leadership in bioscience research, innovation and industry. This 38,750-ft2 facility will help fulfill that mission by housing the KBA offices, but more important, it will provide incubator laboratory and office space for bioscience startup companies. The central focus of this incubator is high-quality tenant office space and flexible laboratories that can be leased individually or in blocks to accommodate a tenant’s changing needs.

Construction began in December 2009 and will continue through February 2011, with occupancy in March of 2011. This project was developed with the goal of achieving a Silver rating or better using the US Green Building Council’s LEED-NC 2.2 rating system. The construction cost is $10.6 million.

The KBA’s stated goals for this project included setting a progressive, high-tech, innovative tone; providing abundant natural light; and creating a professional, but not luxurious, space. To meet these goals, the building’s design incorporates open structure, limited use of ceilings, and extensive use of glass--all of which translated into a lot of exposed ductwork and piping. With the intensity of MEP systems associated with laboratories, it was determined that the best way to “hide” these elements was to integrate them with the architecture. The use of building information modeling (BIM) was employed to make a very complex laboratory project manageable in several areas: laboratory casework and equipment layout; integration of structure, architectural design, and MEP systems; and construction sequencing and field coordination.

Since the labs are designed as incubator space with tenants and research types yet to be determined, using BIM was invaluable. Casework layout and equipment locations could be easily reconfigured in the model until very late in the project, as well as during and after bidding, by documenting alternates and easily accommodating substitute manufacturers. During the submittal process, because the supplier was able to use the building model, the time to produce and review submittals was reduced by weeks.

Achieving the goal of open space flooded with natural light required clerestories and minimal ceilings with most of the building’s elements exposed; therefore, the integration of the architectural systems, structural systems, and MEP systems was paramount to a successful project. The use of BIM allowed the blending of these systems by modeling connections, brace locations, and mechanical system routing to work within the framework of the steel structure and other space limitations. Elements such as ducts, piping, valves, electrical conduit, and fire protection are among a number of systems that were modeled and integrated with the structural and architectural elements. During construction, having a model has helped immensely with field coordination, submittal review and installation sequencing of integrated systems.

As an example of this integration, a central element of the Venture Accelerator project is a clerestory corridor open to both levels that contains the supply and exhaust ducts and many of the pipes carrying diverse water types serving the labs. To provide the clean, high-tech aesthetic desired, a panelized system of white fused glass and clerestory vision glass constitutes the interior facade of the lab block on the south side of the corridor. The piping, along with supply and exhaust ducts serving the labs, penetrates the fused glass panels. Using BIM, all the panel joints and substrate material were modeled as well as the piping and ducts. This permitted the penetrations to be located at elevations contributing to architectural aesthetics and more importantly, interference avoidance, thus integrating MEP systems with the architecture.

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