New England Biolabs’s new campus in Ipswich follows LEED specifications.
For more than 30 years, New England Biolabs, a leading producer and supplier of reagents to the life sciences industry, has been on the global forefront of molecular biology research. Now, the company is poised to lead the way again with its newly completed, green research and manufacturing facility. Located in rural Ipswich, construction of the new campus – with its administrative offices, research laboratories, manufacturing and shipping areas, central energy plant and solar aquatic waste water facility – enables the rapidly growing company to immediately expand its capacity, provide room for projected future growth and reduce its operating and pass-through costs.
Designed to have minimal impact on an environmentally sensitive site, the challenge facing the architectural team and the developer was to design a beautiful state-of-the-art research center that seamlessly integrated into the surroundings, incorporated the most advanced technology available and performed to the requirements for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified “green” building.
“At New England Biolabs, we have a profound respect for our natural surroundings and are constantly striving to create new ways to minimize our impact on the environment. It’s ingrained in our corporate culture. It’s been that way from the very beginning,” says Jim Ellard, chief executive officer of New England Biolabs. “Designing our new campus to comply with the rigorous principles of the LEED certification process, we can take our commitment to the environment to the next level by creating a high-performance, sustainable building that is beautiful, smart and hopefully, an encouragement to others to explore going green.”
Reducing Site Disturbance
A key LEED requirement is to conserve existing natural areas and restore damaged areas to provide habitat and promote biodiversity. Bordered by wetlands, the rolling landscape of the former historic estate demanded that special care be taken in developing the campus to sensitively address critical environmental issues as well as the town’s strict “great estate” zoning regulations. Taking the lead from Don Comb – a passionate environmentalist and the founder and owner of New England Biolabs – and keeping with the company’s long-time commitment to environmental protection, the site presented a number of challenges to the design team.
Adhering to the town’s limit for new development on this site to no more than five times the square footage of all existing buildings, finding a way to locate the new laboratory building within these parameters while saving three very large Copper Beech trees well within the construction area, became two of the design team’s primary concerns. Parking for more than 300 cars (over one-half had to be within the building), overall energy efficiency and the reclamation of wastewater and run-off were others.
In order to take full advantage of the site’s views, solar exposure and natural surroundings, as well as meet the town’s great estate requirements, the team chose to gently nestle the main laboratory and manufacturing building among the Copper Beech trees and place most of the parking underground. This allowed the new building, with its walls of glass, steel and blue-green pre-patinated copper panels, to organically spring from the site. This also enabled the construction of company’s programmatic requirement for an enclosed tropical winter garden to the south – a 2,500-square-foot, 45-foot high glass and steel structure filled with rain forest plants, butterflies and birds that provides New England Biolabs’ scientists with a unique, self-contained ecosystem for advanced research.
To accomplish this, an extensive and permanent soil retention system was constructed to allow the excavation of the building and below-grade parking areas to proceed without disturbing the fragile root system of the trees and to preserve the site’s original character. With the new structure surrounded by casually sloping areas of wild grasses and planted terraces that were restored to the original topography, extra care was taken to incorporate extremely efficient systems throughout the site that directs all drainage from the main buildings and all run-off water from the surrounding areas into a man-made pond and a subsurface storm water infiltration facility in order to recharge the site’s precious ground water.
Reclaiming Wastewater
Reducing the generation of wastewater and potable water demand, while increasing the local aquifer recharge is another important component of the LEED’s sustainability principles. To address the campus’s wastewater in a way that answered many of LEED’s requirements and supported the company’s commitment to sustainability, a system was designed to take full advantage of leading-edge technology that also complimented the aesthetic qualities of the campus structures.
Near the main laboratory building, housed in a stone and glass greenhouse on the southern portion of the site, is the campus’s remarkable new Solar Aquatic Waste Water Treatment Plant that utilizes an innovative four-stage wastewater treatment process. The system is designed to naturally treat and reclaim the 27,500 gallons of wastewater generated daily by the facility and to dispose of it into an on-site soil absorption system. To accomplish this, the WTP uses a series of highly sophisticated blending tanks, aerated solar tanks that promote the biological uptake of nutrients through plants, clarifiers, marsh systems to further clarify effluent, a sludge storage tank and a final effluent holding/dosing tank to safely extract impurities from the water and recycle it back into the system. Additional components enable the use of grey water for the flushing of toilets and condenser water from the labs’ refrigeration units for heat recovery and cooling elsewhere in the building.
Maximizing Efficiency
Along with its commitment minimizing the impact on the environment and to recycling valuable resources, New England Biolabs is also very committed to maximizing energy efficiencies. These are the guiding principles behind the design of the entire campus and also critical components for LEED certification.
The 200,000-square-foot facility is constructed along a soaring, 3-story glass and steel covered “main street” that serves as the primary circulation spine and provides an abundance of natural light into the numerous research laboratories. The glass used throughout the main street area, the winter garden and the rest of the building is a high-performance, low-glazing system with internal shading devices designed to selectively minimize the building’s heat gain while providing a transparent skin that maximizes the availability of daylight throughout the structure and reduces the demand for supplemental lighting. The openness of the street also encourages spontaneous employee interactions and serves as a naturally lit art gallery for displaying the owner’s vast collection of art.
To conserve energy, all rooms are fitted with occupancy sensors to reduce lighting loads when the rooms are not being used. To help mitigate solar gain throughout the building, the roof is covered with a white reflective thermoplastic membrane. Adding to the building’s overall energy efficiency and sensitivity to the environment, the winter garden is designed to operate on 100 percent outside air without recirculation during the summer and 100 percent recirculation in the winter.
New England Biolabs and the entire design team have worked tirelessly to create a vibrant and sustainable new campus for cutting-edge research that incorporates some of the most advanced technology available. From saving three majestic trees to recharging groundwater to reducing the demand on valuable energy resources to the alternative-fuel refueling stations available for recharging cars, the goal for this new research center remains the same – achieve LEED certification, not for the certificate itself, but for the environment.
