IUPUI Science and Engineering

HEAPY provided commissioning services for the $25 million, high-tech building that provides space for education and research. The LEED Silver building provides teaching laboratories, research laboratories, and a vivarium.

This building is the first non-medical science academic building to open on the IUPUI campus in 20 years, containing about 71,400 SF for research and teaching spaces. This new multidisciplinary research facility provides a transformative environment encouraging collaboration, team based research, learning, and engagement among peers with diverse research interests. Both wet and dry labs are present to address the needs of today’s diverse research portfolio and to adapt to the changing needs of the future.

The animal holding areas and other essential spaces are controlled to a negative or positive pressure with respect to the adjacent spaces by a lab airflow tracking control system which maintains the airflow differential supplied to and exhausted from each space. Non-essential vivarium areas and other spaces are controlled to a pressure differential with respect to the surrounding spaces. Animal holding areas have fail closed reheat coils, separate thermostatic control to each animal area, stainless steel grilles and thermoplastic diffusers, stainless steel exhaust and local exhaust from ventilated racks as required. All vivarium areas (except the wet exhaust areas) exhaust through the fume hood exhaust system.

The commissioning team verified equipment was installed and operating properly to ensure intended life cycle, reliability, and reduction in maintenance expense. With these issues resolved, the building end user benefits not only from properly operating equipment that uses less energy, requires fewer service calls and replacement parts, and demands less “crisis maintenance” from the IUPUI Facilities Management Staff or outside, but also improved environmental conditions.