Saiful Bouquet is providing structural engineering services for the new $45 million 3-story, 87,000 gsf building that consists of Teaching Labs, Faculty Offices, and Research Labs, for the College of Natural & Behavioral Sciences, Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Biology departments.
The new building will be a modern instructional facility, providing state of the art science labs and classrooms supporting innovations in science and math education and faculty research. Science labs and lab support currently housed in the existing NSM building will be relocated in the new building, which also will house new active learning classrooms, faculty research labs, and common gathering space designed to foster collaboration and increase faculty and student interaction.
Special structure dynamic pertains to foot-fall induced vibrations was required for the biological teaching labs and research chemistry instrument rooms at the upper floor slabs. A maximum vibration velocity of 2,000 micro-inch per second (mips) measured on top of the structural floor lab (for moderate pace walking) was set as the limit for those spaces. A less stringent vibration criterion of 4,000 mips was used for other teaching labs. For all other non-lab related areas, a less strict vibration criterion of 8,000 mips was implemented to economize the floor slab construction.
