Suffolk County Community College (SCCC) is New York’s largest community college with 25,000 enrolled students at three campuses. This past spring semester welcomed the first set of students to its first new academic building on its largest and oldest Ammerman campus in Seldon, N.Y., in nearly 50 years. Named after a former Suffolk County legislator and long-time supporter of the SCCC who passed away in 2013, the William J. Lindsay Life Sciences Building was completed in October 2014 and is expected to receive LEED Gold certification.
Construction on the $29.8 million education and research facility began in November 2012. The 63,000-square-foot, three-story life sciences building houses programs for students studying biology, marine biology, chemistry, environmental science and nursing. Approximately 5,000 students attended classes in the building for the 2015 spring semester.
In recent years, the college’s enrollment in life sciences has risen exponentially, outgrowing the former building, according to Rosa M. Gambier, Ph.D., Biology Department Chair. “The old life sciences building served approximately 4,700 students in the 2013-14 academic year, up from 2,700 in 2004-05,” she says. “In the last three years, we could not meet demand because we didn’t have the space. This innovative edifice will allow us to increase the number of students taught and, along with our newly revised and cutting-edge curriculum, gives us the ability to greatly enhance the quality of education Suffolk County Community College provides. It is a superior facility for student research and both collaborative and hands-on learning. It will bring our department into the 21st century and prepare our students for the 22nd.”
SCCC president, Dr. Shaun L. McKay, says the new life sciences building demonstrates the school’s commitment to invest in students and provide what is needed for a state-of-the-art education.
A Winning Design
BBS Architects, Landscape Architects and Engineers, Patchogue, N.Y., won a 2009 design competition by the school for its rapidly growing enrollment in life sciences disciplines. BBS Architects was the architect, interior designer, and mechanical and electrical engineer, and J. Petrocelli Contracting, Ronkonkoma, N.Y., was the general contractor for the project.
“The architectural approach that convinced the client to select our design focused on five aspects of the new building,” says Roger P. Smith, AIA, LEED AP, principal architect at BBS. “These were the concept of a ‘building as a learning tool,’ expressed through technology and site design; visualizing the vocabulary of biology through architecture and programming; encouraging the interaction and exchange of ideas among students and faculty; incorporating the structure into the natural environment of the site; and implementing a high number of sustainable features into engineering and architecture of the facility.”
Joseph B. Rettig, AIA, LEED AP, BBS director of architecture, says the design team sought to express the natural organization of organs and nerve systems in its approach to implementing the school’s program through interior layouts, architectural organization, traffic patterns and connections to the overall campus. “They were inspired by the concept of a plexus and connecting nodes, which is represented in the design of the structure’s central rotunda and wings, as well as in the organization of hallways and building systems in the new school,” he notes.
Site Sustainability
Creating a new identity for scientific education programs by displaying the school’s inner works to passersby and visitors, the building is designed to integrate its teaching functions with the campus circulation. By using a major pedestrian path from the south that leads to the main quadrangle, students and faculty from all disciplines are encouraged to travel through the building.
The life science building is located in a way to reflect and enhance the campus’ existing pathways and spatial relationships already in place. By taking advantage of the site’s changing grade, the building’s north entrance receives students and faculty coming from the Riverhead and Smithtown Sciences buildings at the second floor level. Where the grade drops one full story on the south, another entry serves students and faculty arriving from the parking area to the southeast and adjacent athletic facilities to the southwest at the first floor level.
James P. Garrahan, RLA, LEED AP BD+C, assistant vice president and senior landscape architect at Greenman-Pedersen Inc. Engineering and Construction Services, Babylon, N.Y., says the site design efforts focused on blending functional features with the building setting, sustainability, habitat restoration and maintaining the natural look.
“The architectural and planning concepts are fundamentally sustainable,” explains Rettig. “The east-west orientation of the building minimizes summer solar heat gain. The integration into the land contours reduces the exterior surface area, and the overall space efficiency minimizes the material and construction resources. The high-efficiency mechanical and electrical systems are designed to provide safe and functional operation, while significantly minimizing the energy use.”
In terms of site design, the sustainability is visible along the pedestrian paths and around the outdoor classrooms, where there is a self-contained stormwater management system with rain gardens and wet meadows, leaching and diffusion pools, and large swales with native, drought-resistant vegetation. All storm flow from the Life Sciences building site and the surrounding section recharges on-site. The site’s ecosystem encourages the study of nature with student gathering areas located near the terrain’s most interesting sustainable elements and main landscaping features.
The life sciences building is designed to serve as a learning tool by itself, according to Smith. “It incorporates pioneering sustainability and educational features, such as interactive boards displaying-in real time-the building’s sustainability data and power performance,” he says. “It is a very cool feature; you can literally walk around and watch the building work.”
The project also features a tight building envelope; high levels of insulation to reduce thermal losses; a natural stormwater run-off management system; high recycled content and locally sourced materials; a high-efficiency lighting system with occupancy sensors; and a 144-kilowatt rooftop photovoltaic system from SunPower Corp., San Jose, Calif., which will provide more than 60 percent of the building’s energy needs, saving approximately $48,000 a year.
An Efficient Building Design Envelope
The life sciences building’s exterior façade is a mixture of brick, aluminum composite material (ACM) panels and glass curtainwalls. The brick veneer panels convey a sense of earthen physicality through the use of color, texture and pattern, which also reflects the look of existing brick buildings on campus. The glazed curtainwall with energy-efficient low-E glass is approximately 150 feet wide and 45 feet high.
Kawneer Co. Inc., Norcross, Ga., supplied its TriFab VersaGlaze 451T and Series 560 Insulclad Thermal Entrances for the project. Kawneer also supplied its Series 1600 glazed curtainwall, and the aluminum panels are ALPOLIC ACM from Mitsubishi Plastics Composites America Inc., Chesapeake, Va. Pittsburgh-based PPG Industries Inc. supplied its 1-inch Solarban 70XL low-E tempered glass for the curtainwall.
To create a highly energy-efficient building envelope, designers created a multilayered wall consisting of an internal concrete masonry unit (CMU) wall, 3 inches of Houston-based BASF Corp.‘s Spraytite 178spray-on thermal insulation, a 2-inch air barrier and the exterior brick veneer.
“The building is arranged with two wings around a central rotunda, which serves as both a transit and a gathering point for students,” explains Tracy Hansen, RA, interior designer at BBS. “Each wing has a single laboratory corridor, which provides clear orientation as well as efficiency and visibility. The corridors feature active exhibits and serve as informal meeting places for students, activating the building as seen from the exterior.”
The building’s south-facing window wall modulates and harvests natural light. Classroom spaces on the second and third floors feature internal glass walls to take advantage of light and views to the south. The corridors and public spaces have seating opportunities to facilitate impromptu conversations or short breaks before entering classrooms.
For visual continuity of the building’s exterior and interior, the exterior ACM wall panels are used inside the atrium. Along with maple wood veneer rails, the atrium features curved internal balconies with 1/2-inch tempered glass, stainless steel and an aluminum handrail system from Osiyo Metals, Broken Arrow, Okla. Additionally, curved steel members support the balconies.
Construction Challenges
Mark Evans, senior site superintendent at J. Petrocelli Contracting, says the project team faced several technical and logistical challenges during construction. “These included a curved curtainwall and a complex steel structural frame that features curved members, the need to accommodate daily pedestrian traffic bordering the construction site, a significantly sloping site, and pre-existing site conditions that necessitated a high amount of new control fill material,” he says.
The building’s expansive curved exterior walls required the steel fabricator, Babylon Iron Works, West Babylon, N.Y., to manufacture and deliver structural elements in sections up to 20 feet long. Due to the curvature of the building’s central section and the unusual 5-inch mullions between glaze panels, the support system for the exterior glass curtainwall was custom-designed and manufactured by Kawneer. Connecting clips are welded to the building’s steel structure, and aluminum tubing is attached to the clips supporting the glass panels.
Joseph Petrocelli, treasurer at J. Petrocelli Contracting, says the construction team collaborated closely with the college and the designers to ensure the school’s daily operations were not impacted by the construction work. “Our site management team closely coordinated noisy construction activities and deliveries with the campus leadership and ensured that roads and walkways adjacent to the building site remained safe and open to traffic,” he explains. “In addition, our team employed sustainable construction and recycling practices in order to protect the site’s environmental integrity, to ensure healthy indoor environment for students and faculty, and to support the project’s LEED certification procedures.”
William J. Lindsay Life Sciences Building, Suffolk County Community College, Suffolk, N.Y.
Architect/interior designer/mechanical and electrical engineer: BBS Architects, Landscape Architects and Engineers, Patchogue, N.Y.
General contractor: J. Petrocelli Contracting Inc., Ronkonkoma, N.Y.
Site designer/civil engineer: Greenman-Pedersen Inc. Engineering and Construction Services, Babylon, N.Y.
Steel fabricator:Babylon Iron Works, West Babylon, N.Y.
Structural engineer: Ysrael A. Seinuk, New York City
Aluminum composite material: ALPOLIC from Mitsubishi Plastics Composites America Inc., Chesapeake, Va.,
www.alpolic-americas.com
Curtainwall/storefront/doors: Kawneer Co. Inc., Norcross, Ga., www.kawneer.com
Curtainwall glass: PPG Industries Inc., Pittsburgh, www.ppgideascapes.com
Photovoltaics: SunPower Corp., San Jose, Calif.,
us.sunpower.com
Spray foam insulation: BASF Corp., Houston, www.spf.basf.com
Stainless steel and aluminum railing system: Osiyo Metals, Broken Arrow, Okla., www.osiyometals.com
Photos: Tom Sibley/Wilk Marketing Communications