Building a home for innovation

Scheduled to open in 2015, the National Graphene Institute will be a world-leading research and incubator centre dedicated to the development of graphene, helping keep the UK at the forefront of the commercialisation of this revolutionary material. Here we learn that such lofty ambitions need a suitable home… The National Graphene Institute facility is being designed by a team led by architects Jestico + Whiles under the personal direction of Professor Novoselov, one of the two leading professors at the University of  Manchester who,  together with Professor Andre Geim, was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering work on graphene.

200 times stronger than steel and just one atom thick, graphene is the strongest and thinnest material ever measured, and also the world’s most conductive material. The National Graphene Institute will include two separate cleanrooms, laser, optical, metrology and chemical laboratories, seminar room and offices and ancillary accommodation.

The building is a compact 4 storey cube that occupies the full site foot print. The main cleanroom is located on the lower ground floor to achieve best vibration performance. Offices and labs are intermixed on all floors with most of the labs and all the offices having views and daylight. A top lit double height breakout space will link two floors providing welcome respite at the heart of the intense working environment and a roof garden will also form part of the top floor seminar room and social and public area.

The building is enclosed by an economic inner skin comprising a proprietary composite cladding panel system that provides weather tightness and thermal insulation and accommodates flush windows and other openings as required. Fixed to the outside of this inner skin is a separate perforated stainless steel ‘veil’ which wraps around the volumes of the different elements of the building continuously to provide a unifying texture and coherent, fluid shape.

The NGI will be designed in accordance with the current European Standards and associated national annexes and building regulations. These standards will consequently provide a design life of 50 years for the structure and generally define appropriate loadings for the specific use of the various spaces. The most important overriding design feature requested by the users though was the assurance that the building will provide the requisite structural stability against vibration. This is clearly an important consideration for a research environment in which much of the activity will be carried out at the nano scale. The structural design therefore is heavily influenced by the need to achieve the necessary vibration criteria at the basement and first floor levels, where the cleanrooms are located, as well as the need to prevent EMI (electromagnetic interference) transmission. A structure with suitable mass to provide stiffness, damping, robustness and stability is required. The balance between vertical stiffness for vibration control, layout and economy has resulted in the adoption of a 6.6m by 6.6m structural grid.

The vibrations within the university cleanroom, at basement level, are required to be below VC-D, while the smaller first floor cleanroom, should not exceed VC-B. Achieving the VC-D vibration criteria for the main cleanroom is critical to the success of the project.

The results of the vibration survey indicate that traffic on the adjoining Booth Street East is the primary source of external vibration. The University is currently investigating options to have the road resurfaced prior to the NGI becoming operational and to put in place a maintenance regime that will ensure rigorous control of any future excavation works in the road.

Internally, the lifts, and the equipment within the Central Utilities Building (CUB) which houses the majority of the plant servicing the main building could transmit vibrations into the rest of the structure, so it has been designed as a separate block, physically isolated from the main building by a separation joint and a double line of structure. The slab thicknesses, column spacing and locations of shear walls also ensure that any locally generated vibrations, including footfalls, are not transmitted to the tools, which are themselves mounted on vibration dampers to further reduce any risks of vibration.

The Cleanrooms, which are the focus of the facility, are located on the lower ground and first floor levels of the facility, with the lower cleanroom maximising the available VC-D vibration criteria with a ground bearing slab over a stable layer just above bedrock at 4m below ground. The upper cleanroom is designed to provide flexible VC-B vibration criteria, which will accommodate future expansion. Both cleanrooms are immediately adjacent to the central utility building (CUB). They will be the most highly controlled spaces in terms of contamination, temperature and relative humidity.

The adjacency of the cleanrooms to the CUB allows for shorter distribution routes improving the efficiency of the services design and overall cost of the facility. Support accommodation associated with the cleanrooms such as gas stores/ hazardous waste and bulk gases are located in close proximity to the cleanroom, along with the cleanroom technician’s office.

The preferred option adopted for the lower cleanroom consists of a ‘bay and chase’ layout served via a central access/move-in corridor vertically, the clean room comprises a 1.2M raised access floor, with 3.0M internal cleanroom ceiling height, and a 3.0M plenum zone. There is a continuous viewing corridor along two sides of the cleanroom which allows visitors to view activities within without having to gown up. Its double height also allows views from the pavement outside down into the cleanroom.

The same cleanroom construction materials for the walls/ floor/ ceiling and doors will be used for the upper cleanroom (intended for industry collaborators) as the lower cleanroom. Both cleanrooms will share a primary, although restricted, gowning Area with defined protocols for cleanliness and a ‘cleaned lift’ connecting them. The supply air system utilises a clean plenum, fan filter units (FFU’s) and sensible cooling coils for flexibility and efficiency.

Professor Novoselov had two particular requirements concerning the laboratories: they should be flexible and easily adaptable to future requirements, and they should be interspersed with the offices for the researchers to make it convenient for experimental work and write up/documentation, and also so that different research teams could be holistically accommodated easily in the building.

Laboratories are set out in modules measuring approximately 6.6m wide (minus the wall construction thickness).  This is consistent across all of the laboratories and assists with the interchanging of flexible furniture. The overall typical module itself is designed to achieve the client’s brief of min 42m2, although due to the structural grid the majority of laboratories achieve an area of approximately 55m2.

First and second floors of the facility house a mix of flexible open plan laboratory space opening onto offices on one side and fixed modular laboratories on the other. This offers maximum flexibility in the use of the space being adaptable to suit many types of research. A number of laboratories are located on the external perimeter of the building allowing natural light to penetrate the space. Light and view were felt to be very important to the laboratory work environment wherever this possible. The larger, open plan labs also benefit from borrowed light and views through the glazed partitions to the adjacent offices. More demanding laboratories in terms of service requirements such as the chemistry and furnace room are located on the third floor of the building below the roof level, reducing the run of services and therefore cost. The internal modular laboratories within each floor level are primarily located within the centre/ core of the building and are positioned back to back with a central shared grey space running the full vertical length. The laboratory walls including the walls of the grey space will be constructed using a system which will support wall mounted shelving and equipment, as requested by the users for future flexibility. Centrally located laboratories also offer vertical flexibility in terms of connection between lower and upper laboratories/ grey spaces to ease service connections and sharing of lab support equipment.

Each laboratory zone will also have provision for creating future cores within the structural floor slab to allow for interconnectivity between laboratories and grey spaces as mentioned above. Each modular laboratory will also have a double door entry for equipment move in and user access, of a suitable height (circa 2.4m). The laboratory will provide a clear floor slab to soffit height of 4m within the centre of each room to allow the location of future equipment, with all services coordinated to ensure this is achieved.

Bespoke modular benching with integrated shelving will be located around the perimeter of the room with clear height zones for larger pieces of equipment. Within the exposed concrete soffit will be recessed Halfen channels to facilitate the hanging of exposed services, lighting and Laboratory equipment/ furniture. Gas distribution and sink locations will be dependent on lab user preferences.

As requested by the users, 2 No. Radio Frequency (RF) shielded rooms will be provided within the new facility. Both RF shielded rooms will be located within separate Laboratories, and will be of a modular panel construction to allow both rooms to be dismantled, relocated to another area and re-erected or changed in size and configuration at a later date if required to cater for future flexibility.

Lastly, the project brief requires specific items of scientific equipment, which are essentially high powered magnets to be accommodated within certain laboratory areas. However, it was not possible to determine the precise specification of the equipment at the time of design. As a result the building may require further measures to be carried out by the University at a later date to ensure the selected magnets are located in suitable locations and in installed in the correct environments. As part of the design, consideration has also been taken in positioning services throughout the facility to reduce clashes with magnet gauss lines, e.g. services within the clean room plenum area.

Authors: Tony Ling, Jestico +Whiles, with contributions from Ramboll and CH2M Hill

Design Team Led by EC Harris as project managers and cost planners through the OGC Framework, the design team also includes CH2M Hill who is providing specialist architectural laboratory design services together with M&E consultant services, with Ramboll providing Civil and Structural services.