Not for Neophytes

Low Tolerances, Steep Site Testing Lab Team in Berkeley

A $47 million nanotechnology research laboratory is being built by on a tricky hillside on the UC Berkeley campus. Low-tolerance thresholds for vibrating equipment, acoustics and electromagnetic interference are in play for the six-story, 95,000-sq.-ft. building. The project is scheduled to be completed next year.

By Thomas York

Foster City-based Rudolph and Sletten recently completed site excavation — described by its project manager as the toughest phase — for a 95,000-sq.-ft. nanotechnology research laboratory on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

	The first, second and third floors of the $47 million laboratory will be constructed into the hillside; the fourth, fifth and sixth floors will extend over an emergency fire road. The project architect is SmithGroup (rendering courtesy of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory).

The $47 million lab, located on a steep hillside above Memorial Stadium, will house a research department for nanotechnology, a new engineering field that seeks to create new products less than 100 nanometers in size.

Albert Lee, the project executive for Rudolph and Sletten, said recently that construction was proceeding smoothly despite unusual design features.

"It features both the laboratory-type construction we see in the biotech industry and clean-room construction we see in the semiconductor industry," he said. "It's unusual to have both in the same building."

The U.S. Energy Department is funding the project, while Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will operate the foundry.

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The San Francisco office of the SmithGroup designed the laboratory, frequently dubbed a "molecular foundry."

Construction got under way in December. Completion is scheduled for December 2005. Excavation of the footprint for the building requires cutting 70 ft. into the hillside, Lee said.

The building will also have dry and wet labs and a detached central service plant.

Joe Harkins, the project manager for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said when opened, the six-story laboratory would bring "together investigators from around the world to conduct research in nanoscience theory, fabrication, structures, manipulation and imaging."

He added that researchers won't be using hazardous materials in the new structure, so the architect and contractor could bypass stricter codes required where hazardous materials are used.

Still, the design requirements were exacting.

"The building is being built to a higher degree of care than an ordinary research laboratory," Harkins said. "There are strict tolerances when it comes to vibration, acoustics and electromagnetic interference."

For example, he said electric cables servicing the labs and the offices would be threaded through rigid steel conduits to minimize electrical interference.

He added that workers are coating the steel rebar in the walls and floors with a special epoxy to cut out unwanted electrical connectivity.

The research labs have been placed in the rear of the building, while the front-facing offices will have sweeping views of Memorial Stadium and San Francisco Bay.

Imaging and manipulation equipment will be placed on the first floor, where vibrations are least likely to be felt.

"We've taken care to provide for the isolation of heavy equipment," Harkins said. "We've included a separate utility building to house vibrating equipment, such as the chiller."

The second floor will house fabrication equipment, as well as the clean rooms. Inorganic and organic research will occupy the top three floors.

In some research rooms, SmithGroup has added acoustic baffles with low-slotted diffusers to minimize noise and air movement from the HVAC system.

Bill Diefenbach, project architect for SmithGroup, said he had the difficult task of designing an innovative structure that incorporates many different sciences.

"Each lab is difficult, and each one has specific issues, such as those dealing with the site," he said.

Placing the building on the site was also a headache.

Diefenbach said that the first, second and third floors will be constructed into the hillside, and the fourth, fifth and sixth floors will extend over an emergency fire road.

"We needed to cantilever over what is a fairly restricted site," he added. "The offices on floors three, four and five are held from above by the truss."

Major subcontractors on the project include Federal Way, Wash.-based DBM Contractors (which is doing the excavating and shotcrete shoring), Woodland-based Gale Manufacturing (steel erection) and Walnut Creek-based Conco Construction (concrete shear walls).