This fall, construction is scheduled to begin on the Integrated Engineering Research Center (IERC), an $86 million, 85,000-sf infrastructure project on the 6,800-acre campus of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., the nations premier particle physics lab.
IERC has been in the works since the summer of 2015, and at one time was conceived as a 100,000-sf building that dedicated two of its three floors to office space. That concept changed after a team comprised of Arup and Perkins and Will won a design competition that Fermilab conducted in 2017.
That teams concept scales back the building to two floors, and includes more lab space. What emerges are hybrid labs that, essentially, remove the walls separating labs and offices for the purposes of colocation and collaboration. There are two hybrid zones on the ground floor, in one big open area that just about anyone can walk through,explains Aaron Tabares, a Senior Electrical Engineer for Arups offices in Chicago, which provides the SE, MEP, F/LS, AV, and IT services to the IERC project.
(He notes, parenthetically, that Arups acoustics expertise came in handy to help design these hybrids with quiet features for researchers when needed.)
Brian Rubik, SE, Fermilabs project manager, adds that Perkins and Will, the designer and AOR on the IERC project, championed bringing more natural light into the new building, whose sloped roof includes clerestories that angle toward the campuss iconic Wilson Hall.
Rubik notes that IERCs mechanicals were moved to the center of its upper floor so that more offices could be positioned on the interior perimeter to receive more light. Fermilab calls the hallways and windows around the perimeter of the ground floor science on display, says Rubik.
A lot of the buildings systems are discrete, adds Tabares. The form of the building considered just about every angle for the occupants.
Open, collaborative spaces, designed modularly for maximum flexibility, are IERC's hallmarks.
Keeping the mechanicals off the roof will present a more aesthetically pleasing appearance for a building that, when its completed in October 2022, will be a centerpiece of Fermilabs campus. Prominently featured in IERCs design is its glassed-in Argon Cube, located at the northeast corner of the building. The Argon Cube is an R&D space related to Liquid Argon (Lar) in support of the DUNE (Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment) and the LBNF (Long Neutrino Baseline Facility). It houses the Liquid Argon cryostat vessel, where Fermilab will test the detector components and advance study related to using Lar cryogenics in filtration and air contamination recovery.
This project presented an array of physical challenges to the Building Team, which includes Mortenson (GC/CM) and Terra Engineering (CE).
Terras role was especially important, as there were a lot of utilities running into this building, says Thomas Mozina, Design Principal for Perkins and Will, whom BD+C interviewed last week with Adana Johns, AIA, LEED AP, the firms Associate Principal and Science + Technology Practice Leader.
Mortenson has been prepping IERCs site, adjacent to Wilson Hall, since July 2019. The location is constrained by the formal horseshoe entry drive and a raised (8- to 10-ft-tall) berm that had been a radiation shield for a 1.25-mile-diameter Tevatron beam line, the main ring around the particle accelerator, which was deactivated in 2011. Tabares says that excavation was dictated by another, active particle accelerator beam. An electrical artery outside of the building also needed to be relocated.
Were kind of jammed into there, says Rubik about the Centers location.
The Argon Cube, enclosed in glass for exterior visibility, is an example of IERC's science on display.
Inside the IERC, Perkins and Will designed office and lab spacewith a certain sense of modularity, says Mozina, in order to provide Fermilab with the flexibility it needs as research evolves. (He describes the design as a kit of parts, and Johns doesnt think the client will require many more changes in that design, having already gone through so many iterations in the planning process.)
Wilson Hall, which dates back to 1971, has 800 employees. It will connect with IERC at the formers ground floor and 16-atory atrium level via a 20-ft-long enclosed runway.
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Latest addition to Fermilab campus about to begin construction - Building Design + Construction
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