The University of Texas at Houston will open the curtains on its new $60 million School of Nursing and Student Community Center in May.

The university is also working toward dedicating the eight-story project as the first nonresidential building in Texas to win a gold or platinum rating from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental organization.

Two Houston firms, Jacobs Engineering and Vaughn Construction, have managed construction of the facility-considered the Southwest's most comprehensive academic health science center with a sustainable design. Two other firms served as architects.
BNIM of Kansas City, Mo., was at the helm, while San Antonio's Lake/Flato Architects (the AIA's 2004 firm of the year) served as associate architect.

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In planning the new campus facility, the UT Health Science Center at Houston said a major goal would be "to improve the health of the people in Texas and the nation."
That philosophy has prevailed as the university works toward the highest LEED rating.
The LEED rating system was established in 2000 by the U.S. Green Building Council, a national organization of owners, developers, architect and design firms, contractors and others in the building community. The system is designed to help guide the industry and develop a standard definition of high-performance green building.

Assistant project manager Kyle Marden called the School of Nursing "an example of sustainable concepts that has evolved into one of the most innovative green buildings in the nation."

Indeed, the highlight of the building is its sustainability and flexibility. Each elevation features a different design, based on the energy requirements and the angle of the sun.

"When you go into the LEED rating system, you get points based on how much daylight is emitted into the middle of the building," Marden added. "All the exterior glass is manufactured so that it keeps out heat and lets in light. Once the building is fully operational, it will use about 40 percent less energy than a traditional building of the same size would use."

Because the sun is in the west most of the day, darker corrugated metal panels and less glass are used on the west elevation than on the east side, which has flat rather than corrugated panels. All the exterior panels are 100 percent recycled aluminum.

The first two levels of the west elevation also feature 80-year-old brick from demolished warehouses, while the east side's unique characteristic is its reclaimed wood siding. This "sinker cypress" was fished out of the swamps of Louisiana.

While using these types of materials may be the "right thing to do," they can be difficult to obtain, and that often means longer lead times, Marden said. "Some of the construction is not standard practice, so the subs and the workers aren't used to using some of the materials," he added. "Sometimes it takes them longer to do the work, and it's harder to coordinate."

For instance, insulation made of recycled cotton denim and lint is used throughout most of the building. The material is fire retardant, and has proven to be reusable even after getting wet.

"We were afraid of mold issues, but when some did get wet, we were able to take it out, dry it out and reuse it," Marden said. There is some traditional fiberglass insulation in the building, but like everything else, it is formaldehyde free.

Before construction of the school could begin, the team had to carefully deconstruct, rather than demolish, the old building on the site. The team reclaimed and warehoused more than 80 percent of the old structure's materials.

Building in the bustling Texas Medical Center area meant that not only were parking and space limited, but several separate projects, including a $300 million MD Anderson project that involves the building of a sky bridge and the construction of two new roads, cut right across the site.

"Our site has decreased by more than 20 percent as various projects and road work nearby have slowly encroached on us," said Marshall Cramer, project supervisor.

Marden said there also is almost no space to store materials. "We've had to continually move materials around while trying to get the floor down," he added.

Despite the obstacles, the team has managed to recycle about 85 percent of construction waste materials. The site has dumpsters designated for sorting various waste materials, including scraps of wood, metal, concrete and drywall, which will be sent back to the manufacturer to be ground up and reused.

Getting the floor down was not a standard building task. Except for the first level, the floors of the entire building sit on pedestals that are 18 in. off the ground, a design known as access flooring. "There are a lot of things we could have started construction on if we were just building on concrete," Marden said. "But we had to wait for the raised floor to get put down, and you can't put the raised floor down until the building is dried in."

That was just one example of coordination problems the team sometimes faced.
"You'd think we could just begin installing the drywall, but we had to wait," Marden added. "When you have doors that sit 18 in. off the ground, that is not your typical construction."

The benefit of the access flooring, however, is its flexibility and sustainability. The building will have very little duct work in the ceilings because it will all go beneath the access floor. Each level will have two HVAC units tied to vents cut into the floor. And because in a typical room, hot air rises, "having cold air come from underneath is more efficient," Marden said.

Attesting to the building's flexibility are the demountable partitions used to create the office walls. While they appear to be standard floor-to-ceiling walls, they can easily be taken down and moved "so in a matter of a week you could reconfigure your whole floor plan, move offices or build new ones without having to tear down drywall or move duct work," Marden added.

Three massive skylights on the top floor allow natural light to drop down into the building. "You could have an office on level six and still have light coming from above," Marden said.

The building is mainly a concrete structure, but what sets it apart is the concrete's high fly-ash content. Fly ash, a byproduct of coal-burning power plants, is normally disposed of in landfills. High-volume fly-ash concrete mixes were used throughout the project in varying degrees, with minimum fly-ash percentage requirements applied to the different concrete elements. Vaughn Construction was in charge of the concrete pour and overseeing testing to ensure the mix met required strengths (see Texas Construction, Concrete, August 2003).

Based on the total volume of concrete, the building used approximately 51 percent fly ash. The concrete tends to get a little hotter and takes a little longer to cure, "but it's actually a higher-resistant concrete," Marden said.

On the roof, galvanized steel supports are in place to hold solar panels. But because the panels are costly, they won't all be put on right away. Eventually, 10 to 15 percent of the building's total energy consumption could come from solar energy, and the solar energy that is not used, on weekends for example, could be sold to a power company for credit.

Another unique feature will be the two roof gardens, also called a green or living roof, that will cover the entire north and south ends. Proponents of living roofs say they not only create a pleasant environment, but also provide better insulation than a normal roof.
Storm drain pipes will collect rainwater, and five 10,000-gallon cistern tanks will recollect the water that will then be pumped to the toilets or used for landscaping.

The team did encounter some skepticism and resistance from those who question the value of such "green" practices in commercial building. "Getting all the contractors into the green building frame of mind did require a lot of effort," Cramer said. "But for the most part, the contractors that have really participated with us have begun to appreciate the benefits that we're seeing. The goal was to create an understanding of the ramifications of what we were trying to accomplish and an appreciation for how these things do help the environment."

Marden said benefits of green building are worth the extra effort. "I think there are three levels that can be done," he added. "On the first level are the things you should do no matter what, such as trying to conserve energy and using recycled materials. At the second level are the things you don't necessarily have to do, but depending on the LEED rating you're going after, you can do this if you have the money."

He said he and his team are working on the third level in order to get platinum rating, which can involve working with an innovative design that might someday be the subject of research.

The team was also fortunate to have an accredited LEED professional onsite full time. As project engineer for Jacobs, Marissa Vásquez worked closely with the architects and the construction team, documenting and overseeing the implementation of LEED requirements, and coordinating education and outreach programs.

She is confident that her efforts will pay off. "If for some reason we don't make platinum, we will certainly make a very high gold," she said.