Penguins, Power and the Final Frontier: A Look at Three Award-Winning Projects

Get excited for the 2025 DBIA Project/Team Awards by revisiting some of 2024’s biggest winners. In this Design-Build Delivers Podcast Bonus Content Episode, we shift the focus from process to the projects themselves — what makes them stand out, the unexpected challenges they overcame and the surprising ways they came together. From cutting-edge space research to building in one of the harshest places on Earth, these stories will keep you hooked and get you ready to submit your own team’s award-winning projects. 

Hear more from the teams that brought you the University of Arizona Applied Research Building, Holt Watters Field Camp and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) Research and Innovation Laboratory (RAIL). 

Access all our free design-build resources and learn more about Design-Build Done Right® at dbia.org.

DBIA members are shaping the future, one successful collaboration at a time.

Chapters

• 0:08 Introduction
• 1:41 2024 Project of the Year: University of Arizona Applied Research Building
• 15:17 Holt Watters Field Camp, 2024 Chair's Award Winner
• 29:56 NREL Research and Innovation Laboratory, Four-time Award Winner
• 43:07 How to Get Your Project in for the 2025 Project/Team Awards

Transcript

00:00

Music.

Erin Looney  00:08

If you caught the November episode of the design build delivers podcast brought to you by us, CAD and archives company, you heard all about the 2024 DBIA project team award winners and how design build played a key role in their success. But now we're shifting gears a little. This bonus episode is all about the projects themselves, what they do, why they matter, and how they're shaping the future. And let's be honest, this also gives us another chance to revisit some fascinating stories, like the time a boat capsized in Antarctica, as Brandon Shaggy, nahusan, so perfectly put it. The vote

Brandon "Shaggy" Neahusan  00:43

capsizing just sucked. Yes, yes, it did.

Erin Looney  00:46

And if you want to hear that full story, go check out our November 2024 episode. For now, I am your host, Aaron Looney, and in this design build delivers podcast bonus episode, we are taking another look at three of 2020 four's biggest project team award winners, the University of Arizona's Applied Research Building was the project of the year. The Holt waters field camp was the winner of the prestigious chairs award. And the National Renewable Energy laboratory's Research and Innovation laboratory was a four time award winner in 2024 in the last episode, we spent time talking about how design, build brought these projects to life. But this time, we're going to focus less on process and more on what makes these projects so freaking cool. And they really are. And if you want to learn more about DBIA projects, Team awards, or even submit a project for 2025 stick around. We've got details on that at the end of the episode. Now, let's get started.

Brian Brandis  01:41

But I understand it's very Instagramable. We had photos

Katie Stachler  01:45

and the eBay listing for it. They literally

Andrew Gillett  01:48

bought it themselves and said, Hey, can you put this in the building?

Erin Looney  01:52

What in the world could they be talking about? The University of Arizona's Applied Research Building is a powerhouse of innovation, bringing together cutting edge research high tech facilities and bold design choices from advanced space science to groundbreaking research tools. This project is full of surprises, including a few twists the team and definitely I never saw coming. So let's hear from the team behind this award winning project, including Andrew Gillette, the pre construction director at McCarthy building companies, Dana Sylvester, construction phase project manager from the University of Arizona, Katie stackler from Smith group, who helped lead the design portion, and Brian Brandis, Director of Planning and Design at the University of Arizona. What were some of your favorite aspects of working on this project? Was there anything that stood out or felt different compared to other design build projects or other university projects that you've worked on in the past?

Katie Stachler  02:47

The building is centered around the thermal vacuum chamber, listening to the main researcher from the university who was working diligently to get that component of the building dialed in and explaining to the Design Build Team What was the purpose of that we designed the building around it. If it had not been a design build methodology, I don't know that we would have come to that same conclusion, and nor would it have gone as seamlessly as it did

Andrew Gillett  03:16

that TV chamber. So little was known about it. When the researchers bought it, they literally bought it themselves, and said, Hey, can you put this in the building? As it turns out, we couldn't put it into the building. We had to build the building around it. So after we placed the slabs for the first floor, we brought the TV chamber in, we set it in place, and then we protected it, and then we poured the next three decks around it. And so it sat there in the middle of the building as we constructed it. While we were doing that, the researchers worked on a design to make it operative again, because it hadn't operated in 20 years. So it was really collaborative, really fun, just a unique project that I don't think will ever be replicated.

Erin Looney  03:55

You're talking about these unique characteristics and things you're never going to see again, and this project utilized progressive design build. Is there a connection between the unique and, frankly, kind of bizarre story you just told about the chamber and using PDB in terms of its ability to benefit and make sure that you delivered this project the way you want it to one

Brian Brandis  04:16

researcher requested this anechoic chamber that's 30 feet by 30 feet by 30 feet. So it's a massive, big cube. Kind of looks scary when you look inside of it, because it's all these cones and everything, but you can't hear echoes inside of it, and they test all sorts of equipment in it. When we did our ribbon cutting and walking through the building, the researcher said, Well, I just wanted to ask for the biggest anechoic chamber I could get and he didn't even know if he could get it. We were building and designing something that we didn't know if he could do it, and we found the right consultants, the right engineers, to help with design assist as well as part of that process to make that happen. That's why

Dana Sylvester  04:55

progressive design build was so important for this project to not have a preconceived. Design at all, to just have an open book, an open mind, and to be able to create from that point made it a huge success.

Andrew Gillett  05:05

Yeah, the progressive design build delivery allowed us on these elements that were totally unknown, the thermal vacuum chamber, the anechoic chamber, which is also my favorite room in the building. It's beautiful. It's not scary.

Brian Brandis  05:17

It's cool.

Erin Looney  05:20

Depends on whether you're inside it or outside. And from

Brian Brandis  05:23

what I understand, it's very Instagramable,

Andrew Gillett  05:27

and it is unique. It's one of a kind. It's, as far as we know, I think it's the biggest radio frequency anechoic chamber on a university campus. And when the researchers asked about it, there was no precedent to be able to price it from. So we just recognized that it was a risk that we had to work on as a team to mitigate. We placed an allowance on it, and then we dove into the research to figure out how we could do it and what it could cost. We found the right consultants to help us develop it. We never had to value engineer ever on the project. The University

Katie Stachler  05:55

did allocate more money for this project, realizing the value that it was going to bring, not only to the university, but also to the community of Tucson and the surrounding areas. There were quite a few different departments and so forth that were coming together, and in my previous experiences, that could cause some competition. And it was really a pleasure to work with all of the scientists because they also understood the larger mission. It wasn't just the design build team that was collaborative. It was the university and the users really understanding that larger mission, to bring all of these different programs and aspects together and how that was going to allow them to be able to advance their research much quicker.

Erin Looney  06:38

This project also featured VDC technologies like augmented reality. How did these tools enhance the project's efficiency and accuracy possibly address some of the issues we've already talked about, and what impact did that have on meeting the university's research goals and the mission? As

Katie Stachler  06:53

Andrew mentioned, we did not have the thermal vacuum chamber. We had photos and the eBay listing for it. That was one waiting. They got it on eBay. They bought it on eBay in New Jersey. Okay, now I have a whole

Erin Looney  07:06

second interview. I wanted to $50,000 oh my gosh,

07:12

just glossing.

Andrew Gillett  07:16

Built around one piece of equipment that they bought on eBay.

Speaker 1  07:19

Some scientists said I gotta order that. That's crazy. Exactly what happened?

Dana Sylvester  07:23

Dominguez was behind it. He actually built it. You would see his mechanical drawings. He'd had hand drawings. He had also CAD drawings, but every little component had a certain place where he had tagged every piece to make it operate correctly. They took all the guts out, the shrouds, refinished everything, and then he was the brilliant mind behind it to get it operational for their needs.

Brian Brandis  07:43

And he worked hand in hand with the design build team directly. He's been in meetings for the last. I mean, he really years like a consultant. Yeah, he was directly involved still to this day, so we

Erin Looney  07:54

can move back from Rubin and eBay. But that was a tangent that needed to be pursued,

Brian Brandis  08:00

because he was doing drawings that eventually got integrated into the thin model.

Katie Stachler  08:04

And then immediately south of our building is Speedway, which is a main thoroughfare through the university, and there's an underpass that goes through there. And I know people don't think it rains a lot in Arizona, but when it does rain, it absolutely floods, working all that out virtually ahead of time and seeing how we could make it safer, more pedestrian friendly, accessible. There was quite a few components that we had to model, obviously, ahead of time and make sure that they worked out as we were working on the construction.

Brian Brandis  08:35

So we didn't have any exposed conduit within the building, because we do have a lot of exposed slabs throughout the building, kind of being industrial looking. You don't have conduit running on these nice exposed decks everywhere. That's a huge undertaking in itself to throw the bones in the building. But we

Dana Sylvester  08:50

do have some exposed when it was laid out. It's just, it's beautiful. The Conduit is a gorgeous thing to see. So I know a lot of the electrical engineers and they would appreciate this, because it's something that we often want to hide. I know we've been

Erin Looney  09:01

talking about a vacuum chamber, but this project, on the whole, doesn't exist in a vacuum terrible segue. It is on the planet Earth despite the space references, and it is part of a community so sustainability and community engagement were key components. What steps did you all take to prioritize these aspects, especially with all this other stuff we've been talking about. University

Dana Sylvester  09:24

is very a big proponent of sustainability, so we require all our projects to be a minimum of lead silver. We have what stopper. We've got lighting controls. We've got building controls, automation for HVAC. We're also big on water harvesting. So the landscape of this building is also incredibly beautiful and well thought out with the plants that were selected. And then there are swales to capture water during rain events, to help it percolate through the ground and move slowly. It's almost like a river basin. And so this helped a lot for the campus surrounding buildings and adjacencies we had. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people involved on this project. So from all the trade partners involved, the contractors, the suppliers, equipment, materials, is huge for Tucson community. Another

Katie Stachler  10:11

aspect of the sustainability was all those folds and fins on the facade. We did energy modeling and dialed in exactly the angles of those fins to make sure that they were, in fact, shading the windows behind them

Brian Brandis  10:26

as part of the lead requirement. We also brought on the commissioning agent during the design process to help us with design of the mechanical systems and functionality where this building sat before it was a horrible pedestrian bicycle pathway with ramps for universal accessibility. And it wasn't part of the project originally and again, part of the design build process. We were able to incorporate a better pathway, and through very good design, we made everything universally accessible across the site. We We made the request at the beginning of the project. I think you project, I think you broke ground in like May, and we said we had to have this $2 million worth of site done by the start of school in August, and they pulled it off. There's

Andrew Gillett  11:10

a great foresight by the university to recognize the impact that improving the pedestrian pathway and the bicycle pathway would have on sustainability for the community, because now people don't have to drive to campus. They had a safe way to cross Speedway and to get to their campus in a sustainable way. Made it more bikeable, more walkable.

Brian Brandis  11:30

Smith group, we pushed back on them a little bit too, to constrain the site a little bit so that we'd have room for other future building sites around it as well. Originally, the building was a little bigger, so we asked them to tighten it up a little bit.

Katie Stachler  11:43

We called that the slice and dice. Slice and dice we're gonna

Erin Looney  11:47

leave Earth now, inspired by space exploration, the building's design balances functionality with this open, collaborative environment. Walk us through some of the unique design elements and how those support the university's mission for innovation and research. So

Brian Brandis  12:03

they build and develop high altitude balloons that they send up into high altitude areas. And this is kind of the area of research between sending things into space, not quite satellites, because it's cheaper. This was another major component that this whole building is built around. It's 80 by 80 by 40 foot space within the building, so that's tied directly to the connection to the thermal vacuum chamber, the anechoic chamber and the mission control center, so they can actually run space missions and CubeSats out of this mission control from the University of Arizona, a lot of these programs and departments were across Campus, and the original thought was to bring these scientists together under one roof so that they could collaborate and cross pollinate and kind of have that casual interaction. So you walk through the second floor corridor from their office to lab, and there's probably a 60 foot corridor whiteboards, and they're scribbling stuff that I don't think any of us know what it means, but they're doing all that. And there's the imaging technology lab that builds sensors for cameras and telescopes and satellites. Some of that was developed that's on the Webb telescope now, and OSIRIS REx, that went to the asteroid University of Arizona, has been involved with every single NASA mission since its inception, we did

Katie Stachler  13:22

know that this was going to be a world class once in a lifetime facility, so we literally designed in a tour route, knowing that they're going to be coming to the building. And we do want as much of the science on display as we can have. But again, we need to have that security so we have very large windows, for instance, that look into the high bay area. But there's also screens that can be put down, so if it is a mission critical component that's going in there, then you would not be able to see that on the tour route. I

Brian Brandis  13:52

thought that was a very interesting dynamic of designing the tour route into this because part of any university is getting the funding. So they mentioned right off the bat, we're going to have three letter departments coming through this building. We need funding from DOD and the government and all those type of places. So how do you design a building that is secure and also open at the same time? And

Erin Looney  14:16

I imagine for recruiting, if you want to come there to study, you you want to see proof that you're going to get what you're committing to. It's been really great talking to you. I'm thinking of a career change. I'm so fascinated. Now I want to go to the university and study space exploration. I

Dana Sylvester  14:30

love sci fi movies, but this takes it to a whole new realm. Now I want to understand, you know, actually, what they do? Do you say that doesn't seem real? Now, when you absolutely sometimes it's too real. Yeah.

Erin Looney  14:43

Are you interested in sustainable design and construction practices, but concerned about profitability? Us, CAD an Archons company helps forward thinking. ENR, top ranked AEC firms in mitigating risk and driving profit through digitalization using Autodesk AEC technology tool. Learn more, contact us, cad.com/dbia for a free 30 minute consultation. That's us, cad.com/dbia from the extreme environment of space to one of the most extreme environments on Earth. Next up, we are heading to Antarctica. Holt waters field camp isn't just a research outpost. It's a testament to sustainability, resilience, and as I hinted earlier, the kind of problem solving that comes with working in some of the harshest conditions imaginable. This project took home the chairs award for its environmental, social and economic impact. And if you think working in Antarctica is tough, yeah, you're right. The wind

Brandon "Shaggy" Neahusan  15:47

is your constant companion. You do not want to be figuring anything out in Antarctica, that

Erin Looney  15:52

mindset led to a groundbreaking pre fabrication approach, innovative energy solutions and a structure designed to leave absolutely no trace. Here's more from my interview with Brandon Shaggy, nehuzen, the Director of Design and Construction at Bespoke project solutions and Ellie mango, or simply mango, as I learned in November, nicknames are mandatory in the South Pole, the Field Operations Director at Bespoke the Holt waters field camp stands out for more than just the design build aspects, which, of course, you know we like. But beyond that, it's cutting edge in a lot of different ways. This is an extreme environment. So could you talk about the origin and the goals of the project and sort of, some of the specific design and construction challenges that were faced in this location? People

Brandon "Shaggy" Neahusan  16:38

are not in Antarctica to fool around, especially the science community. We're not down there to take pictures. We're not down there to leave any kind of a mess. We tread very, very lightly. So this wasn't just about a green building or a building in Antarctica. We're really trying to set a precedent for that environmental, social and economic responsibility. So environmentally, it's a zero emission facility. Socially, it involves diverse collaborators, and brought a lot of folks into the field to build those buildings while really paying attention to any sort of environmental impact that we'd have. And then economically, it really proved that design build can deliver a high value solution under extreme constraints for a relatively smart budget, the government got what they needed out of an economic facility. You know, really economical facility. The students learned probably more about Antarctica than they ever wanted to know, and bespoke could bring all that together and build those facilities for them, safe, comfortable, environmentally friendly, and not taken a square inch more than what they had before. I think

Ellie Mango  17:46

I want to specifically highlight just what a different ball game the Antarctic Peninsula is compared to other places on the continent that bespoke has worked before. We didn't have, you know, any equipment whatsoever. We had an ATV. We were landing on a beach. We were moving materials up to this job site. We were moving them across the cape to the second job site. The wind is your continent companion. It is just one of the most brutal places that I've ever worked on the continent. And that deserves to be mentioned because it is no small feat to do even the most minute, simple task there, and it takes a lot of hard work, teamwork, communication, specifically, once you get to the field with your plan in place, the snow

Brandon "Shaggy" Neahusan  18:35

at least, kind of facilitates you not leaving a mess, right? You don't leave tire tracks, you don't leave footprints, you don't leave anything. So as that snow goes away, it's while it's tough to shovel, and we call it the cape sharaf CrossFit program, with all the snow that we shoveled last year. But really, yeah, once the snow goes away, now you really got to start thinking about how you're not going to leave any marks on that phase out of place. So I tell the team all the time, if we're always going to be past Plan A, B, C, if we're not to like double y, Double Z, we're not doing our job. What

Erin Looney  19:14

does removing all traces look like?

Brandon "Shaggy" Neahusan  19:17

So remember that we land at a beach. The main camp is about a quarter mile away. That's a pretty established, I don't want to call it road, but that's pretty established two track. The other camp that we built was about a mile and a half away from the beach. So that's a penguin blind that is meant to be in the middle of a penguin rookery. It's an observation post for the scientists do their work, but it's also kind of a lifeboat, just in case, and God forbid, fire is our worst enemy there. So if the main camp ever burned down, they would have an alternative solution there to stay until the caliber can come and save them. We had a mile and a half to get. Out to that some of it is really picking our path on how it's going to go. We know what the environment, we know what the weather is going to do eventually, and it's going to kind of remove any sort of tire tracks, but you just stay in that exact same in exact same out and no fooling around out there. You just make as least of amount of any sort of footprint that you can

Ellie Mango  20:24

demo two picking up, every nail, every speck of paint, every piece of molded out plywood that you're taking down and packaging it up so it can go off continent Antarctica is pack in, pack out with garbage the whole continent. So

Erin Looney  20:42

let's talk pre fabrication and modularization, which were central to this build. What advantages did these methods provide in balancing efficiency with durability? Prefabrication

Brandon "Shaggy" Neahusan  20:52

for us wasn't just preference. It was an absolute necessity. We have such a small window of construction, so building it here in Denver allowed us to really control the quality, reduce the waste, and test any of the systems before we ship them 1000s of miles, right? It also gives us flexibility. We joke it's like Legos for grown ups and parkas with the dexterity of penguins. You do not want to be figuring anything out in Antarctica. You want it already figured out? And you just want to be putting it back together? And again, like we were talking about on the environmental impact, you don't want any waste. We don't release so much as sawdust into the atmosphere. There. It's already built. It's already done. Another part of that is the way we had to flat pack these so we put the buildings together. Again, with the students. We love the clients. Noah to come see it, touch it, feel it. Imagine what it's going to be like. Request any last minute changes, which, of which? There were very few, because we had talked so much and collaborated so much throughout the design process. There are no Home Depots in Antarctica whatsoever. So everything has to be thought out. I mean, you really have to have everything, every single thing, thought out. So to prefab it here, we knew we had all the parts. We knew we had all the pieces. Now it's just a matter of shipping them 1000s of miles and across the great passage and get them there. If you don't have everything thought out, you're sunk. Now, moving

Erin Looney  22:17

on to something we've hit on in some of your other answers is the importance of community engagement. That was a huge part of a remote project like this, the success of it and a big part of how you nab the chairs award. And you've talked a little about the work in Denver. You've talked about working with the students. How did showcasing the pre fabricated structures in Denver and involving those students enhance the project. It was

Brandon "Shaggy" Neahusan  22:41

a game changer for us. It allowed us to really not only share the project story, but the scientists story. There's very few people that even know that this place exists, let alone that we're there and we're doing work. So it allowed us to show off the students work. It allowed us to show off our design work. We could do that for the administration of CU we could do that for any sort of donors, the scientists, obviously, they could very much see like, this is my bunk. This is where I'm going to cook whatever it is that they're going to make for dinner. It's one thing to say we built a building in Antarctica. Your mind can go anywhere, but this actually shows you the building, and you can kind of envision yourself there. And I think that awareness will probably open your mind up to really think through, what are we doing there? What is it like? You know, it can answer some pretty important questions. The other part that was great for us is bespoke has a lot of experience building in our event in polar regions, but it allows a 23 year old grad student to be like, Why are you doing it this way? And then that gives us an opportunity to be like, are we just being idiots in the last 25 years of Antarctic design? Or is there really a reason for this? Usually the answer is yes, but there's been a couple of things like, yeah, why don't know why we do that this way. So it opens up a new way of looking at how we approach the facilities, how we approach the architecture, how we site the buildings, how we build the buildings, and then eventually the disposition of those buildings to be taken off the continent. So again, we don't leave any marks whatsoever.

Erin Looney  24:18

So the theme in our conversation thus far has really been that this was designed for minimal environmental impact period. But let's talk about another aspect that we haven't really hit on yet, relying entirely on solar and wind energies. Again,

Brandon "Shaggy" Neahusan  24:32

that really wasn't an option either. I mean, shipping water there is not going to be a thing to use the least amount of fuel possible. We have generators, but we don't. You don't want to use those. You don't want to smell them, you don't want to hear them. You don't any of that. So really, we started back in the design. You'll notice that on a couple of buildings, they have that twisted Gable the way the roof line is that was very intentional, not just from an architectural that looks. Little standpoint, but that was really thought out to be able to capture as much melt water as we could, because that's what they use for drinking water. They capture that and hold that and then run it through filters, and that is your water. The solar just completely made sense. Kickoff in particular can be a bit temptuous. I would call it with the weather. It can be pretty cloudy, it can rain, it can snow 31 to 33 degrees, where it just snowing cats and dogs, and then it turns into rain, and then it goes back to snow, and then it turns into rain. The solar was just it just absolutely made sense to have the batteries to store that energy. It was the only thing that made sense to just not have to run generators. This goes

Ellie Mango  25:42

back to the theme that I was saying from the very beginning in Antarctica, you got to work with nature, not against it. We're given wind at this location. You use it. We're given water that's collected the Austral summer has sunlight, 24/7, for months, that's used that that's work smarter and not against the forces that are there, and

Erin Looney  26:03

try not to get space madness. So we've talked also not just about the environmental impact, but about collaboration. And collaboration on this project happened across so many regions and so many sectors, obviously, that can lead to some complication with cohesion and teamwork. So how did you maintain cohesive teamwork and effective communication with people geographically dispersed?

Brandon "Shaggy" Neahusan  26:28

At the risk of sounding corny on this answer, the love for this building from every single person involved made it not hard. We have people in Australia, people in QA we have folks here in different time zones. It really didn't matter when we had something that we needed to figure out or we had answers that we needed. Nobody really cares about sleep at that point. We just set it up in a time that works, and then we have really clear deliverables. This is what we need to accomplish. Our collaboration software really helped. Everybody could see exactly what we were talking about. We didn't have to sketches on the back of a napkin or anything. We could really build these models. They could see it and rev it. When you love something this much, you're going to make time. You're going to figure out how

Ellie Mango  27:12

to make it work. Given the nature of the location, it just forced really good pre planning all the things you just talked about, because once you're in the field, I just want to say that it is the only way you're communicating is with a satellite phone or messenger or carrier pigeon. I'm just kidding, but the penguin funny. The carrier penguins are already working hard building their nests. We can't use them, so the internet is on for an hour a day to send and receive emails. I just want to highlight the complexity and difficulties of sending messages in and out in any capacity from Kickstarter F and how important it is that you've pre planned with everyone before you get to the field

Brandon "Shaggy" Neahusan  27:58

internet. There is dial up in the early 90s, maybe, and your mom keeps picking up the telephone. So it's like cuts. I mean, it is. It is an absolute. You don't want to be talking there. You want to have all the conversations you needed to have way before then.

Ellie Mango  28:14

And that is what makes working there so awesome. Honestly, that's what attracts me to it. That's why bespoke loves it. It's a really fun challenge, and so unique, especially in the modern era, being able

Erin Looney  28:27

to communicate contemporaneously is it's ubiquitous. And to think, how do you strategize your communication? There are people who probably couldn't do that question for both of you. Were either of you on the boat that capsized?

Brandon "Shaggy" Neahusan  28:39

No, I was on the main boat, so we just heard about everything over radio. We have satellite texting, so you could use your phone, but it's like old Twitter where you get 127 characters and that's it. So I sent a text back to the office, and I was like, terrible day, the boat capsized. Everybody's gonna be fine. And then I put my phone down, and there's, as you can imagine, there's a lot going on on the vessel, and we're talking back and forth with shore party. And I didn't realize that when I went back, I didn't specify which boat had capsized. So the whole office team is like, what are you talking about? And then I came back 45 minutes later, and I was like, Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, it was a big deal, but we deal, but we everything safe, everything's fine. You're an idiot. I thought the whole boat like, I didn't know what. So my dad should be a little more clear in my comms from now. Well,

Erin Looney  29:33

you only got 160 characters to do it, so you could have been

29:37

exactly

Erin Looney  29:38

one of my greatest fears in the multiverse is the ocean. I purposely watch North Sea videos to scare myself, and now I'm going to go watch Drake Passage videos. And I don't, I don't know, maybe never sleep again. I commend you guys for keeping it together.  If designing for Antarctica meant planning for extreme cold design. Planning for the future of energy meant planning for the extreme unknown, and that is exactly what the rail project team had to do. We

Bret Cummock  30:06

envisioned to say, what can we do to say that in the future, I can, at the least cost, add more lab space to this building, the National

Erin Looney  30:17

Renewable Energy laboratory's Research and Innovation laboratory. Thankfully, rail, for short, isn't just another research facility. Nrel's mission is about energy efficiency, renewable energies, sustainability and clean energy research, and the rail project is a vital piece of meeting that mission. It's built to evolve, to support next generation clean energy research and to drive real change, but the team behind it had to navigate some unexpected challenges along the way. Let's hear from Brett comeck, Program Director for project management and construction at NREL, about how the team made this ambitious project a reality. The submission emphasizes flexible, interdisciplinary research space for energy innovation. So talk about the origins of this project and the vision behind creating this adaptive, collaborative facility, we've

Bret Cummock  31:04

been looking and seeing that what happens at NREL, happens a lot of other facilities as well, is that over time, research missions change, research evolves, and some of the labs that you had built for certain purposes aren't being used as effectively as they could or should, and then you're faced with, how do I solve the problem of having less effective use of space? And to go in and remodel these spaces is a very, very expensive and lengthy process. A typical lab space for the research is usually about 1000 square foot space. We knew we could fit somewhere around 5000 to 6000 square feet of research laboratory space. So the initial vision, oh, we can get five new research laboratories. Our director said, No, I want to do a new model within DOE, where we only build two labs, much larger labs, and make them so they can be easily, efficiently and effectively changed to meet evolving research, and they can also be shared by different groups. So it was all about breaking the paradigm of creating spaces that would become inefficient over time and very costly to redo. We wanted to create spaces that could then now be what we call roll out and roll back in to serve a new research purpose very quickly. So that was the focus of what we've done, looking towards the future, and in creating that space that'll be much more effective,

Erin Looney  32:52

but also, I'm assuming, still be specialized in ways, just more easily, specialized,

Bret Cummock  32:57

exactly, specialized at a lot less kiosk and then a lot less time. So we incorporated a whole lot of strategies to do that.

Erin Looney  33:07

Some of these approaches to ensure that flexibility involved innovative solutions like modular mechanical systems, a micro grid connection. What inspired those choices and how did design build support the success of those features, we

Bret Cummock  33:20

received the money to begin this project a month and a half before COVID occurred, and we had this challenge. So not only to do this unique, innovative, flexible lab, but we had a challenge, and were requested by DOE to say, we also want to show how quickly we can create this project, and our typical delivery schedule is actually very aggressive compared to other models we looked at, putting together various strategies that will not only let us get it done quickly, deal with the challenge of a global pandemic, but also meet our mission for who and what we are at NREL, we Have a group called our intelligent campus, who had envisioned micro griding part of our campus, a lot of that grid could be fed by solar hydrogen fuel cells and other clean energy power sources to supplant some of the needs within the building. And our initial target was to be able to make a connection where we could hook up a hydrogen fuel cell and remove the need for our current diesel backup power. As we did this, in working with our design team, we realized it required a different thought process, which said, you can't just go build your standard electrical type connections. You need to have this in mind when you start at it. Right at the table after awarding the contract, we sat down with the design builder and said, Here's all the ambitious goals that we want to incorporate within our budget, and let's talk about what we can do and how we can facilitate these solutions and the micro. Grid was part of them. Some of the other strategies is being in the pandemic. I think a lot of owners have seen that there's a lot of challenges, especially on federal work sites, with labor and having labor shortages. Our major subcontract partners, working with their design builder, came up with some unique solutions. One of them from the mechanical was to say, up here in the pet house, a lot of the mechanical equipment we can build in our shop, rather than our normal construction on site. And we can do it at better quality, better efficiency. We can build them on skids, bring them out, set them on these skids, already pre fabricated, and simply connect these pieces together that allowed them to be able to have their workforces in house rather than out on site. We had two air handling units that we got called up two months before they were supposed to arrive on site, and they were closely timed so we could finish our building. And the vendor said, you know, we're sorry, but we can't get metal in this conditions through the supply chain. We're going to be six months late. We said, We can't stop our building. We need to finish it. We're scheduled to dry it in and complete a lot of construction here in a month. So having a good, close partnership with our Design Build Team, we came up with a collaborative solution of taking our structure and building some large hatches into the roof so we could close in the building, but when those units arrived on site, we could open them up, drop them in, finish the building, thereby reducing What would have been a significant delay. It's

Erin Looney  36:41

really interesting listening to you talk about the being able to put those units in there after everything was done, because if they ever need replaced, can just open it back up and take them out.

Bret Cummock  36:52

Very valid. You went a very good direction. I can tell you, there's buildings that have had to come in and cut holes in the roof to get out, pull crane units out of the roof to be able to crane in replacements. So this one we realized, was not only a great solution to a problem that came up through a supply chain delay, but it creates a long term solution for down the road when those units should pieces of them have to be replaced. We got a way to get them out and get them in. Can we

Erin Looney  37:24

talk a little more about the future research flexibility? Specifically, you mentioned that some of these labs, they stay pretty basic with some roll in, roll out specializations. You know, you were projecting the future a little when you were doing this. So what were you thinking of? What areas did you envision moving in and out throughout the next few years.

Bret Cummock  37:42

I'll tell you about that, but I'll tell you about another strategy that we built in early with our Design Build Team. We knew we had a budget limitation and we could only get a certain amount of lab square feet, but we needed more. We envisioned to say, what can we do to say that in the future, I can, at the least cost, add more lab space to this building. We realized that we could plan a future expansion of the building, and we could minimize it. That if we looked in advance of how we planned this building and we upgraded certain elements, for example, we only needed three restrooms for this facility. We realized that if we added one more, when we build an expansion, we would need another restroom. We realized that if we designed the corridors and the common spaces and the shared areas and our break rooms and all of these things correctly, they would support an expansion almost doubling our lab space without having to increase our facility. We upgraded key components of our infrastructure inside the building so that now when we want to build this future expansion, it's only building the addition. We didn't know it at the time, but we were able to get funding for that expansion shortly after we completed rel. So being prepared is paying huge dividends for us to very quickly get that additional wet chemistry laboratory space that we so badly need. And

Erin Looney  39:20

do you think that's why you were able to get the funding so soon? We think

Bret Cummock  39:25

it's always a help anytime government funds are being used, the more effectively and the more value you can deliver to the government and the taxpayers. That helps when you are getting funding and on. Talking about the flexibility the labs. We also extended that to looking to say, if I want to reconfigure these labs, there are certain things we can do in the way we design a lab. We built in a crawl space so we can reconfigure underneath the lab. We sized all the infrastructure and distribution systems within the lab to make it very easy to pull equal. Equipment out and in and hook it up very quickly. That's an important thing for owners to think about. Is not just your current need, but the future. A little pre planning will save you a whole lot of money. As far as the current uses, we built one lab that is 3600 square feet. We call our large lab, another lab that's 1800 square feet, we call our small lab, and now within that that has three researches. So we're sharing laboratory space between different research groups. So we currently have one that is focused on energy type, materials, our microbial energetics group is initially moving in the large lab. Our smaller lab is being shared by two groups, one that is doing advanced battery research and one that is doing photovoltaic research on alternative materials to silicon photovoltaics. So while they're needed, they will be there. But the NREN leadership has said, Now you don't own this space. This is shared space. Should your research change, or we have emerging we will move groups around to continually make sure that we're effectively using the space and maximizing the efficiency. I do

Erin Looney  41:13

not have any idea what microbial energetics is, but it seems that if there's an opportunity to collaborate in the lab. It's probably a lot easier when you're sharing the space, but you're not in each other's actual space. It's a recurring theme throughout this project that creating collaborative environments are a big deal. That's a big focus here with as we've talked about, the lab space, but also open interaction areas. How did these design elements enhance that research environment. One of the

Bret Cummock  41:43

important things for research are that, I think over time, people have learned is to get creativity and innovation requires collaboration on researchers, and sometimes some of the best ways for that to happen are for what we call these kind of intentional collisions, opportunities for researchers to be together and stimulate conversation and get to know each other and share their research. So as part of this, we didn't create any individual offices within the rail building. It is all a common area, touchdown space, heavily focused on the lab areas where they can sit down and do some of their work before going back to their home office at another building, and they will then be exposed to other researchers, start up a conversation, discuss research, and often, when they get started down that road, they come up with new ideas. We wanted it to be attractive focal areas, so we look at an internal collaboration zone and an external collaboration zone that are very attractive,

Erin Looney  42:45

in my mind, is a bunch of mad scientists colluding. There's

Bret Cummock  42:49

a lot of research that when people do get that chance to collaborate and think they come up with a new idea. We were supported by DOE to say, let's put money into these collaboration zones to stimulate that type of activity.

Erin Looney  43:07

Three projects, three incredible stories, and three more reasons why design build continues to push boundaries across sectors and industries. If you are inspired by these winners, and you should be and you want to submit a project for the 2025 DBIA project team awards. Good news. Submissions are open now, and this year, the process is streamlined and so much easier. You can find all the details@projects.dbia.org and if you haven't already, be sure to check out the full November episode for more on the design, build elements that help these projects take home dbia's equivalent of Olympic medals. Thanks for listening to this design build delivers podcast bonus episode. A big, big. Thank you to our guests for their entertaining storytelling. Fred Yi for his editing skills and, of course, us, CAD and our cons company for making the design build delivers podcast possible. Learn more at us, cad.com/dbia, DBIA.