Biodesign C/ISTB-5 is an impressive structure, and the work that is taking place inside is impressive as well,” said Joshua LaBaer, executive director of the Biodesign Institute. “In this new flexible space, biologists, chemists, engineers, physicists and others convene to discover answers to disease and pioneer new diagnostics…

“The space is home to the nation’s premier team of neuroscience researchers, already finding new ways to treat Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. The building also houses the ASU team designing the world’s first compact electron laser, a tool that holds promise for both drug discovery and finding new forms of clean energy.”  The building is 188,000 square feet and has received the LEED Platinum status for its environmentally friendly design.

AirTelligence supplied material from Phoenix Controls to allow the mechanical design team to meet the flexibility requirements for the principle researchers.  The Phoenix Controls system acts in conjunction with variable air volume chilled beams from Swegon, allowing tight temperature control which is critical for research.  In an effort to provide ASU with a method to help the campus meet the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, the design team decided to institute a highly efficient run around coil system as manufactured by Konvekta, in addition to MEE Industries adiabatic cooling and reverse osmosis system to maximize energy recovery in the building.  This building opened in September of 2018.

Click here to read article from ENR magazine further describing this project.

Work within this facility includes biomedical and health research, along with solutions for environmental sustainability. The institute has more than 200 active research projects, with 65 tenured research faculty, who include one Nobel Prize winner and National Academy members, with collaborations around the world.

The institute has attracted more than $740 million in extramural funding from competitive grant awards as well as support from philanthropic and industry sources. This has resulted in more than 722 inventions since inception, resulting in 112 patents issued, 56 licensing agreements and 24 spin-out ventures.  This project is the first LEED Platinum building in the State of Arizona and provides ASU with 175,000 square feet of research space.

In this project the design team selected material for laboratory space pressurization and air flow control manufactured by Phoenix Controls in conjunction with airflow monitoring by Ebtron and pressure monitors from Critical Room Controls. Due to their changing research requirements, maximum flexibility is required of the spaces. Control products must be able to respond in under one second to demands for pressure and flow changes in critical spaces.

This building also utilizes the Aircuity for Demand Control Ventilation [DCV]. The DCV systems allow the project to measure certain components of the supply air entering the space and, if the space is deemed clean, the airflow rates in to the space can be reduced to a minimum flow rate from the design. If a spill or other event happens causing the air to become contaminated, the airflow rates are automatically raised to increase dilution and protect the investigators. Application of Aircuity technology in this building and many other lab facilities on the ASU campus has resulted in significant annual energy savings. In addition, this space is equipped with space pressurization monitors from Phoenix Controls and MSA gas and refrigerant detectors used in various labs. This building opened in 2006.

This seven story, 293,000 square ft. project provides flexible laboratories for Fulton Engineering and the School of Earth and Space Exploration.  The design team for this project selected space pressurization and air flow control from Phoenix Controls in conjunction with airflow and temperature monitoring by Ebtron to meet the very rigorous research requirements needed in many of the spaces.

Because the research in this facility can be energy intensive and in an effort to meet the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment which ASU’s President Crow signed in 2006, the University extended the Aircuity Demand Control Ventilation system into this buildings design. The addition of the Aircuity technology further reduced the energy use in the building and allowed the design team to take diversity in the design thus reducing air handler sizing, duct sizing etc.  Additionally, Envirco fan filter units installed in the high bay clean room spaces help these spaces meet cleanliness requirements for clients like NASA where components for several satellites have been constructed. This is a LEED Gold Certified building completed in December of 2004.

This facility is New Mexico’s only public health, environmental, and drug laboratory. This facility conducts tests for infectious diseases threatening people, livestock, and wildlife, as well as for hazardous materials and pollutants in water, air, and milk. It also tests for alcohol and drugs in DWI criminal cases and for autopsy cases. Over the course of a year, the lab performs more than 350,000 tests on nearly 80,000 samples making it a prime candidate for critical airflow and pressurization controls.

The design team based the design of the facility around the performance found when using the Phoenix Controls system.  In conjunction the team wanted validation that the airflow and pressurization products were performing properly. This caused us to install a secondary validation system using Ebtron airflow measuring devices in each duct line and both the supply and exhaust. This facility has multiple accreditations including the FDA, EPA, CLIA, CAP and American Board of Forensic Toxicology.  Building completion occurred roughly in 2008.

This is a large campus located in Glendale, Arizona that provides academic programs to prepare healthcare workers to meet tomorrow’s needs. The Glendale campus designers understood early on the need for this growing campus to have the most flexibility in their laboratory designs and thus implemented the use of Phoenix Controls in to the laboratory projects to control airflow and pressurization in these spaces.

Each laboratory space has consistently been equipped with Phoenix Controls from the Pharmacy labs in the Cholla building to the Large Animal Research Facility. In total there are at least five different buildings that utilize systems from Phoenix Controls. As the campus became more concerned about controlling the amount of air required in these facilities it opted to include Aircuity in to its main research building for demand control ventilation [DCV].  The DCV system in the Foothills Research Building allows the project to measure certain components of the supply air entering the space and, if the space is deemed clean, the airflow rates in to the space are reduced to a minimum flow rate from the design.  If a spill or other event causes the air to become contaminated, the airflow rates are automatically raised to increase dilution and protect the investigators.

Application of Aircuity technology in this building has resulted in annual energy saving.  Additionally, the campus began installing Ebtron airflow measuring stations in each air handler to maintain precise airflow rates  and pressurization for the overall building envelops.  This strategy has resulted in airflow stations being used to control supply, return and outside airflow rates.  Besides the buildings mentioned above the campus uses Phoenix Controls and Ebtron installed in a number of projects across the campus including the Veterinary Science laboratory, Veterinary Clinic and newest building, the large animal facility [LAF].  There were many dates associated with this campus but the first project opened ≈ 2000 and started the Foothills Research Building.

At multiple campus locations the Autani wireless automation system has been selected by the facility team and then installed to allow the facility personnel to program space temperatures and set schedules for heating and cooling in classrooms.

Several manufacturers wireless solutions have been experimented with by campus facility personnel over time. In all cases the wireless solutions which are selected used so much bandwidth that the use of computers by the campus to access the internet was adversely impacted. While there are a number of hard wired solutions that would resolve the internet issue these systems are extremely expensive compared to the Autani wireless solution.  Great Hearts started retrofitting several of their campuses to “test drive” the Autani technology and after seeing the positive results began incorporating the Autani wireless technology in to new building construction.  Multiple completion dates.