Provided by PBS&J

When you’re working on a new home for some of the smartest people — and machines — in the world, you have to do it right. And when some more of the smartest people in the world — and in the building and construction industry — are going to be checking your work, it’s important to put your best efforts toward getting a passing grade.

The team that worked to create the new Research Office Complex (ROC) at the University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) J.J. Pickle Research Campus did more than just pass the test. The complex, with PBS&J as the lead provider of design and construction management, has recently become the first building at UT, one of America’s largest research universities, to earn Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The 94,000-square-foot complex, completed in early 2007 at a cost of $25.3 million, is home to two separate groups of scientists and academics at the Pickle Campus in northwest Austin. The UT Institute for Geophysics (UTIG), a division of UT’s Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG), tackles problems and studies all aspects of the discipline all over the world. The new complex adjoins the BEG’s main building at the Pickle Campus, helping to foster collaboration and research. The opening of the ROC also represents the first time the entire staff of the Institute — which was founded at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston in the 1970s — has been located in one building and on the UT campus.

An even more important catalyst for collaboration is downstairs from the geophysics group — the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), a state-of-the-art supercomputing facility that houses some of the most advanced computing equipment in the world. Lonestar, the TACC’s flagship academic supercomputer, and Ranger, a system funded by the National Science Foundation, are housed along with the TACC’s more than 60 personnel on the lower floor of the office complex. That staffing number is expected to double by 2012, and the new facility has been designed to allow room for this expansion. The two groups housed at the new Pickle facility work together on problems and process related to environmental science — sea level fluctuations, climate change, the impact of earthquakes and tsunamis — that require sophisticated modeling, the kind of resources available from equipment like Ranger and the skills of the TACC.

The TACC is one of eight such facilities in the nation, all of which pose unique challenges for designers and builders. In addition to requiring space for the machines themselves — more than half of the TACC’s square footage— the facility needs to be designed to support future advances in computing technology that may bring with them additional space and systems needs. Indeed, modifications to the facility were required during construction to accommodate Ranger, a system developed by Sun Microsystems that takes up 4,500 square feet (on 100 racks) all by itself. Ranger has the processing power of about 65,000 standard laptops, 125,000 gigabytes of memory, and a peak performance of 500 trillion floating-point operations per second (or “500 teraflops”).

Given the otherworldly quality of a lot of the projects being undertaken by the TACC and UTIG — like fully robotic long-distance laser surgery, or simulating the creation of the very first stars — the ROC looks deceptively like a conventional office building. But the facility itself is also characterized by the spirit of innovation, embracing new advances in technology and showing respect for the environment that defines the work of its tenants.

One sees the fruits of this approach upon entering the parking lot, which includes installed charging stations for plug-in electric vehicles and which has been minimized to reduce the amount of impervious cover on the site. The building’s reflective roof helps reduce temperatures and cooling-related energy use — an important consideration for anyone in often-sweltering central Texas, but especially for people working with powerful, expensive and heat-sensitive computer equipment.

Inside the complex, non-toxic materials — such as carpets made of recycled rubber and yarn — and interior sensors and monitors help maintain indoor air quality. “UT Austin cares about the health of the building’s occupants,” said Rick Fedrizzi, the chief executive officer of the U.S. Green Building Council, on the announcement of the building’s LEED certification. “Everyone’s comfort, safety and well-being will benefit from the fresh air and natural daylight.” The project also recycled more than 95 percent of construction waste and incorporates a variety of strategies to reduce water use.

PBS&J’s Austin-based “Green Team” worked with Flintco, Inc. and a roster of other construction professionals, as well as with UT’s facilities team and the two occupant groups, to produce the ROC on-time, on-budget and to rave reviews from the university. For the ROC, PBS&J also designed the project under the new “Tier 2” university design standards, which allow for more flexible and economical commercial building requirements than traditional institutional standards.

“When the owner publicly and repeatedly remarks that a project is ‘perfect,’ you know it was a success,” says John A. Martin, Division President at Flintco. He credits PBS&J with “keeping the priorities of the project in full view while investing in the important relationships that ultimately differentiates a good project from a great one.”

The PBS&J practice group focuses on creating projects that are as sustainable as possible, and includes professionals in a number of design, engineering and management disciplines. “We believe it should be the role of every architect to be a good steward of the Earth’s resources,” says Chuck Croslin of PBS&J. “We offer all the expertise required for sustainable design and LEED certification under one umbrella.” To date, PBS&J has produced more than a dozen buildings around the country that have earned LEED certification.