The Texas Biomedical Research Institute has selected Lake Flato Architects of San Antonio and FKP Architects of Houston to design new facilities that will add 70,000 square feet of new construction, including 30,000 square feet of laboratory space.
“It will be an exemplary facility that reflects San Antonio – paying homage to our local culture, craft, landscape, and climate,” said Greg Papay of Lake Flato. “It will also be imbued with the spirit of ingenuity and discovery that defines the Texas Biomedical Research Institute. Our goal is to create laboratory, office, and public spaces that are transformational, environmentally responsible and efficient.”
FKP is a renowned biomedical research designer, having worked with many of the nation’s top institutions to transform, expand and propel the process of scientific discovery. “We design with flexible infrastructure to expand and contract programs expediently,” said the firm’s Cynthia Walston. “We accommodate change with laboratories designed on a standard module, generic in nature with organized systems for structural, mechanical and piped services that enable efficient long-term adaptability.”
Texas Biomed Board Chair John R. Hurd praised the selection of these firms that will result in the construction of new facilities to enhance and expand existing programs. “This will dramatically accelerate our research efforts,” he said.
The project will provide state-of-the-art space for research as well as space for support units that are currently scattered around the campus. It will create new laboratories and offices for the Southwest National Primate Research Center, including a regenerative medicine program, and additional areas for the Virology and Immunology Department.
HMG & Associates of San Antonio and Austin will design the building’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering systems. Design is expected to be complete at the end of 2011, with construction to begin in the first quarter of 2012. Construction is projected to be completed by the summer of 2013.
“We are excited to be working with these two world-class architectural firms,” said Kenneth P. Trevett, Texas Biomed’s president and CEO. “The competition for this work was intense as we received several outstanding proposals from local and national firms, which teamed to do the project. The new space will allow us to more aggressively pursue our international health mission—here and in foreign lands—and to more quickly translate the fruits of our discoveries into practical applications.”
The project will be designed for LEED certification, an internationally recognized green building certification system. This certification verifies that a building was “designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.”
For more information on the architectural firms, please go to: http://www.lakeflato.com and to http://www.fkp.com.
Texas Biomed is one of the world’s leading independent biomedical research institutions dedicated to advancing health worldwide through innovative biomedical research. Located on a 200-acre campus on the northwest side of San Antonio, Texas, the Institute partners with hundreds of researchers and institutions around the world, targeting advances in the fight against cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, psychiatric disorders, problems of pregnancy, AIDS, hepatitis, malaria, parasitic infections and a host of other infectious diseases. For more information on Texas Biomed, go to www.TxBiomed.org.