Gladstones Institute Breaks New Ground

By Thomas York

The $72 million building is the first in San Francisco to have an un-bonded brace-frame system

	Photo by Chris Goodfellow

The J. David Gladstone Institutes, a 185,000-sq.-ft research facility on the evolving UCSF Mission Bay campus in San Francisco, is a major undertaking that includes two "firsts" in the city's rich annals of large-scale building projects. The structure is the first privately financed life-sciences research facility to be approved by the city's building department and its first major steel-frame building to use an un-bonded brace-frame system. The Japanese-made, diagonal braces act like automobile shock absorbers during a quake, and absorb most of the lateral forces of a temblor.

Designed by Seattle-based NBBJ, the Institute's research building is part of the University of California San Francisco's new 43-acre Mission Bay campus. Construction began in April 2003 and will be completed this month. Foster City-based Rudolph & Sletten is the general contractor for the $72 million project, which features a tube-steel truss system attached to a steel skeleton. The design enables the skeleton to support heavy loads imposed by the skin of the six-story building.

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Members of Gladstone's construction team said they had a bit of convincing to do to get the system past skeptical building inspectors.

"We had to provide lots of education and bring them up to date," said Todd Sklar, principal of San Francisco-based Mezzatesta Sklar, which served as Gladstone's project manager and owner/representative for the project.

DaNett DeBrine, Rudolph & Sletten's project manager, said third-party experts had to approve of the braces before inspectors would allow them to be installed. Once approved, they were purchased and installed by the structural steel subcontractor, Pleasanton-based Herrick Corp.

"They increase the survivability of the building, and minimize the damage so that it doesn't shut down for a long period of time," DeBrine said.

Despite the challenge of getting the earthquake braces approved, the project proceeded on a tight schedule.

"Permitting went smoothly," said Debbie Addad, Gladstone's operations officer. "We hired a permit expeditor who was used to working with the department, and we did a significant amount of coordination with the planning department, keeping personnel there in the loop."

Major subcontractors include Menlo Park-based Critchfield Mechanical Inc. (HVAC system); San Jose-based KDS Plumbing, San Jose-based Therma Corp., (plumbing); the San Francisco office of Rosendin Electric, (fire alarms and electrical system); and Fremont-based Walters & Wolf (exterior skin).

San Diego-based Earl Walls Associates designed the laboratories.

The new building puts three separate research labs--the Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Institute of Virology and Immunology and Institute of Neurogenerative Diseases--under one roof. The labs are now housed in San Francisco's county hospital complex several miles away in the Mission District.

Researchers from each of the three labs will take one floor of the building. Administration offices and rooms will occupy the rest. The building will house about 500 employees.

On the research floors, Addad said lab benches, equipment and offices have been laid out in "stripes," or long, narrow rows The benches run down the left side of each floor, while core labs and equipment rooms have been placed in the center. The researchers' offices run down the right side of the building.

The layout creates more flexibility, and more useable space because of the open nature of the labs and other work areas, she said.

"We spent a lot of time getting user input into the design, and what I love is that we have achieved such a good use of space," said Addad. "Researchers will have lots of windows and lots of light."

Sklar said designers took the idea of the open layout from a new lab recently built in England. He said Gladstone's Mission Bay building is only the second or third in the United States to adopt the layout.

Rudolph & Sletten's DeBrine said the pre-construction phase took two years, much longer than usual for a project of this scope and size, but the construction phase came in just ahead of schedule.

Nevertheless, she said interior ceiling heights presented some headaches in terms of scheduling the installation of the electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems. The floor-to-ceiling height measures 14 ft., 10 in.--compared to 15-ft.-high ceilings typically found in research labs.

"The lower ceiling added another level of difficulty and made the mechanical, electrical and plumbing difficult to coordinate," DeBrine said.