University of Louisville Brings Home the Gold With SmithGroup and AJRC-Designed Project

LOUISVILLE, KY–(Marketwire – August 12, 2010) –  Bringing home the gold is always an incredible accomplishment. This year the University of Louisville along with its architectural team of SmithGroup and Arrasmith, Judd, Rapp, Chovan Inc. are basking in the glory of gold for the design and construction of the new Clinical and Translational Research Building.

In the quest to continue to excel in the biomedical sciences nationwide, the University’s Health Sciences Center (HSC) embarked on the design of the Clinical and Translational Research building (CTR) in 2004. The facility was to be a continuation of the goals of creating state-of-the-art research facilities in order to attract and retain the best researchers from among the nation, consolidate existing programs, and provide for the opportunity to augment on the success of programs already established within the HSC.

Completed in August 2009, the $109-million, 288,000 gsf facility consists of a combination of wet laboratories, laboratory support spaces, shared equipment/support areas, auditorium, and research faculty offices. The building’s bright, colorful and vibrant interior lab and office environments were designed to facilitate discovery and groundbreaking research. Of primary importance is the open laboratory concept utilized in the facility, which allowed lab planning experts to design laboratories as larger spaces housing various investigators rather than dedicated smaller modules assigned to a single investigator, thus increasing collaboration.

Achieving LEED Gold Certification was clearly one of the greatest accomplishments in this particular project. These days it is more common for buildings to pursue certification, but it is extremely rare that certification isn’t actually pursued until the project is well into construction. The design team, contractor and owner met to discuss the possibility of pursuing LEED late in the game and determined that certification would be achievable since the team incorporated various sustainable design measures from the beginning. These measures included providing daylighting to 75% of occupied spaces, selecting eco-friendly and recyclable materials, and commissioning all equipment including fumehoods.

The Clinical and Translational Research Building project is the fourth in a series of research buildings SmithGroup has designed with partner AJRC. SmithGroup and AJRC have a long history on the University of Louisville campus. Their partnership dates back over 30 years and includes research buildings, classrooms and clinical expansion at the University of Louisville campus. In addition, the team designed the university’s research tower, library center, dental school, clinical core hospital building, an ambulatory care building, and the Donald Baxter and Delia Baxter Research Buildings.

SmithGroup ranks as the 7^th largest architecture and engineering firm in the U.S. (Building Design & Construction “Giants” survey, July 2009) and employs 800. The firm is composed of client industry-focused practices serving the higher education, healthcare, workplace and science & technology markets.

With 346 LEED accredited professionals and 45 LEED certified projects, SmithGroup is a national leader in sustainable, environmentally intelligent design. Among its most noteworthy, recently completed projects are the dual LEED Platinum Christman Building, a corporate headquarters in Lansing, Mich.; the LEED Platinum Smart Home at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; and the National Renewable Energy Lab’s Science & Technology Facility, Golden, Colo., the first LEED Platinum federal project.

Established in 1853, SmithGroup is the longest continually operating architecture and engineering firm in the U.S.