Press Clippings
St. Louis Construction News & Review
January/February 2003

McCarthy-Mosley Build A Top 10 Research Facility:
Washington University’s Whitaker Hall for Biomedical Engineering
By: Jan Niehaus

Building the best doesn't have to mean taking the longest time. In 18 short months, McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. and Mosley Construction, Inc. built the a high tech research facility designed specially for one of the world's top biomedical engineers: Dr. Frank C. P. Yin. The building? The Uncas A. Whitaker Hall for Biomedical Engineering on Washington University's (WU) Hilltop Campus.

The $33 million Whitaker Hall for Biomedical Engineering is one of fewer than ten new research facilities in the country dedicated exclusively to biomedical engineering and, among those ten, one of the most sophisticated.

“Yin was very clear about his objectives,” said Oliver Egleston, principal and president of Boston-based Shepley Bullfinch Richardson and Abbott (SBRA), prime architect and interior designer of the facility.

Washington University recruited Yin, a founding fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, away from Johns Hopkins University in 1997. Ralph Thaman, the university's associate vice chancellor, Facilities Planning & Management, refers to Yin as “a star.”

With the challenge of building a biomedical engineering department from scratch came the opportunity to design the best facility to meet his research needs.

The four-story Whitaker building contains 22,000 square feet of wet laboratory space and 12,500 square feet for core laboratory facilities, i.e., procedure, equipment and environmental areas. According to McCarthy's project manager Scott Wittkop, “The 18 individual laboratories allow for strictly controlled conditions, such as temperature and lighting, that are required for biomedical research projects.”

Yin's research interests include studying the mechanical stresses on the various heart tissues and how aging and hypertension change the flow of blood through arteries and veins. His research has produced a computer model that tells heart surgeons how much abnormal heart tissue they should remove from a sick patient, and where to take it from. It could also lead to better replacement heart valves and heart assist devices.

In addition to research space, the 114,600-square-foot Whitaker Hall contains teaching classrooms, computer classrooms, seminar rooms, a library, a 250-seat auditorium, 45 offices, conference rooms, support staff areas, student and faculty lounges and a side-lit, three-story atrium. The building also provides space for the campus thermal plant, electrical loop and campus switchgear.

Occupancy Two Weeks Early

Washington University's Schools of Engineering and Medicine have collaborated closely for 40-plus years, but this building was a first. The Department of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science was formally established just five years ago, and this is the first facility designed to accommodate their specialized needs.

“The schedule was very aggressive,” Wittkop said. “We've done more aggressive things, but certainly this was fast-track. Occupancy was originally required by December 20, but we achieved it a little early. To have the owner move in a couple of weeks early is a testament to the smooth process.”

Wittkop, who has seven separate WU projects under his belt, emphasized that smoothness. “This was one of the smoothest jobs I've done out at Wash U,” he said. Wittkop credits Ray Barber, Washington University's project manager, Capital Projects & Records, and Steve Rackers, director, Capital Projects & Records, for the team's efficiency.

Kem Mosley, president and CEO of Mosley Construction, sends a lot of credit Wittkop's way. “Scott is one of the best project managers I've ever worked with. He's excellent, especially when there are time constraints, dollar constraints and manpower constraints,” he said.

McCarthy's reputation for efficient scheduling is apparently well deserved. “We had multiple bid packages,” said Wittkop. “The foundation package was issued for bid in April 2001. The concrete frame package came out in July 2001. The final package for the balance of the contract, including MEP and fire protection, came out in November 2001.”

As it turns out, McCarthy-Mosley was low bid on concrete frame, so they self-performed the work. “This project gave us a chance to show off some of the skills we have in field production — work on the footings and foundation and then the structural part, work that is usually subbed out to other companies,” Mosley said. “We bid against other companies that specialize in this kind of work, and we were found to be competitive.”

The Biomedical Engineering building was McCarthy's and Mosley's first joint venture, although both have completed other Hilltop projects. Since 1999, Mosley has worked on four WU projects — three renovations and now Whitaker, their first new construction for the university. In less than three years, McCarthy has completed a total of seven Hilltop projects — two apartment building renovations and five new academic buildings. Wittkop managed all seven.

Meeting the Flexibility Mandate

Given the accelerating rate of change in medicine, biology and engineering, the university's ability to easily and affordably reconfigure this specialized laboratory space is critical. SBRA explained in a self-published case study: “A key challenge for this project was to maximize the flexibility of the laboratory space to accommodate the several types of science being conducted in the lab. Biomedical Engineering requires several dry computational labs, biomedical labs and chemistry labs, the combination of which creates a need for functionality, flexibility and interchangeable space. SBRA's plan provided the required flexibility by creating modular spaces, and by using lab furniture that is both moveable and standardized. Specialized procedure areas such as tissue culture and microscopes are in alcoves off the laboratory space and are open or closed to the lab, depending on the procedure.”

The masterful synthesis of technology and tradition accomplished by SBRA, assisted by New York-based GPR Planners Collaborative, Inc., laboratory program planning specialists, is astounding. The modular, moveable casework in the state-of-the-art laboratories is constructed of oak, with white countertops that convey a clean, light, airy attitude. “It's an attractive atmosphere in which to do research,” Egleston said.

Commenting, too, on Whitaker Hall's aesthetics, Wittkop said, “Almost every Wash U building has one primary ‘wow' space. In this building, we have a three-story atrium with Vermont slate tile flooring, extensive millwork throughout and glass handrails on various floors. It's fantastic.”

The slate flooring and oak paneling that dominate the light-filled atrium are present in other public areas of the building, as well. Such rich materials convey a sense of accomplishment appropriate to the status of an academic department ranked by U.S. News & World Report in the nation's top 20 just four years after its founding.

One of the most interesting choices made in organizing the space was Yin's decision to place the laboratories adjacent to the atrium, “…to create opportunities for interaction and chance encounters,” said SBRA's Egleston. Atrium seating areas encourage serendipitous meetings and facilitate a sense of community among faculty and students. Not only does the laboratory wing open onto the glass-walled atrium. So, too, do the office pods and classrooms, located across the atrium from the laboratory wing. The adjoining landscaped courtyard further establishes a congenial, collegial atmosphere.

Rigorous Design and Materials Standards

Whitaker Hall joins dozens of other grand structures on the 169-acre Hilltop Campus, which has been developed in accordance with Cope and Stewardson's 1899 campus master plan. “We are trying very hard to preserve the original Cope and Stewardson concept,” said Richard Roloff, Washington University's executive vice chancellor. This concept includes the dominance of Brookings Hall — Whitaker sits just 200 feet north and 350 feet east of Brookings — a humanistic scale created largely through low-rise buildings, inviting walkways, interlocking courtyards and quadrangles, expanses of lawn, giant trees and dignified Collegiate Gothic structures, complete with arches, bays, vaults, gables, portals and cloisters. Throughout the Hilltop Campus, the Collegiate Gothic character is consistently expressed in Missouri red Osage granite and limestone with slate tile roofing.

Washington University's standards for architectural building components, articulated in a detailed 32-page document, are explicit and demanding. Washington Univeristy's Facilities Planning & Management office recently revisited the standards “especially the stonework, how it is laid and the courses,” said Thaman.

For many years, the granite used to meet Washington University's specific color standards has come from a quarry in Ironton, MO. While excavating the granite for Whitaker Hall, however, a problem developed. “They went into a different section of the quarry where one of the darker reds wasn't available in the quantities we needed,” Wittkop said.

According to Brad Casten, project manager with Leonard Masonry Inc., “The campus standard was a blend of three shades: 20 percent dark red, 60 percent medium and 20 percent light. That was our target. But there wasn't enough of the real dark red.”

McCarthy's efforts to meet the standard were exhaustive. “With help from Leonard Masonry, we obtained samples from around the country and Canada. Then St. Louis Stone tried to blend those other granites in with the Missouri red. They built sample wall panels with three different sized pieces of granite, just put them together on a pallette like a jig saw puzzle. They'd take chisels and hammers and literally chip the faces of the granite by hand. We did several iterations of mock-ups, but we didn't like the way any of them worked,” Wittkop reported.

The solution? “We went with a two-color range,” said Casten. “Since Whitaker is the first of several new buildings going into that section of campus, they decided to use the two-color blend for all the new buildings on this corner.” The slight color deviation from the original standard will likely go unnoticed since this cluster of new facilities is somewhat isolated from most of the other older buildings.

“Leonard has won awards for their work on other Wash U projects. No doubt, they will submit on this, too,” Wittkop predicted.

Future Prospects

Whitaker has been an excellent project for Mosley. “Being at the corner of Forsyth and Forest Park Parkway, we were able to gain good exposure, with people noticing that we were involved in that project. We're looking for more new construction of education and laboratory type facilities,” Mosley said.

Ryan Bader, project engineer for McCarthy on the Whitaker Hall project, reported that McCarthy is already on board for at least three additional Hilltop projects — extensive renovations and a new addition to the Olin Library, Phase III housing on the South 40 and Greenway Apartments Phase II, new off-campus housing. He anticipated that McCarthy might also play a role in Phase IIB housing on the South 40.

Roloff, the university's executive vice chancellor, said, “We have projections of future needs, and they are significant. Our ongoing 10-year capital plan calls for more than a billion dollars for construction between the Hilltop and the Medical School Campuses, work that that hasn't even been started yet.”

Reprinted with permission of the publisher from the January/February 2003 issue of St. Louis Construction News & Review.

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