St. Cloud State University - ISELF

To facilitate the laboratory use of the new facility with high-powered microscopes, the new building structure was designed to meet strict vibration criteria.

Location: St. Cloud, MN
Client: Rafferty Rafferty Tollefson Lindeke Architects
Services: Structural, Civil
Square Feet: 100,000
Construction Materials: Cast-in-Place Concrete, Structural Steel, Composite Metal Deck
 

BKBM provided civil and structural design for a new three-story, 100,000 square foot flexible lab/science building to lead the University’s efforts in a unique integrated learning approach.  The building was designed for current needs and to facilitate future expansion.  A new skyway linking the Integrated Science and Engineering Laboratory Facility (ISELF) to the Wick Science building was included in the final project.

Civil design included site grading, utility design, design of a new loading dock, and stormwater management for the site that met Minnesota B3 Sustainable Design.

To facilitate the use of high-powered microscopes in the finished structure, several areas of the floor structure were designed to meet VC-A vibration criteria (2,000 µ-in/sec) and the fourth-floor mechanical space was designed to meet laboratory robot vibration criteria (4,000 µ-in/sec) as defined by AISC Design Guide 11.  The building structure utilized composite steel beam floors, a combination steel beam/steel joist roof, concrete foundation walls, and concrete stair and elevator towers.  The lateral resistance was provided by a combination of concrete shear walls and steel moment frames. Foundations were supported by conventional spread/strip footings bearing on engineered fill on the north side of the site and aggregate piers on the south side of the site.

The skyway connecting ISELF to the Wick Science Building clear spanned approximately 73 feet over the street below using a steel framed Vierendeel truss system supported by concrete columns.  The connections to the building on each end were designed to allow the skyway to expand and contract independent of the building structures.