Reliable Stability

Wright State University Neuroscience Building

Dayton, Ohio

Wright State University’s Neuroscience building contains ultra-sensitive lab equipment essential to the university’s groundbreaking research.

The Neuroscience Engineering Building at Wright State University in Dayton Ohio was developed to house multi-million-dollar state-of-the-art research equipment including a scanning electron microscope. The four-story building was designed by Perkins & Will and the structural engineering design was done by Shell & Meyer from Dayton Ohio. The design team selected the use of Cobiax voids to address the stringent vibration requirements imposed for the laboratory equipment.

This new 90,000-square-foot facility centrally situated within the biomedical and engineering research hub on the Wright State campus. The Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building is home to translational research and collaboration with highly integrated laboratories, core resources, and interactive student spaces. A full 55,000 square feet of the four-story building (including a basement) is assigned to research.

The four-story, L-shaped structure features two wings — one for neuroscience and one for engineering — that flank a central, multi-story atrium. Open teaming areas give researchers space to interact and share knowledge. Movable, height-adjustable workbenches allow for easy reconfiguration of the labs as research projects develop and change. Electricity, gas, suction, and data are all delivered from the ceilings through quick-connect plugs, which also eases reconfiguration. When air flows over the pipes, it creates a natural convection current.

The structure is honeycombed with laboratories, features a special bullpen for graduate and undergraduate student researchers, and includes offices, conference rooms, and a 105-seat auditorium for research symposia. The NEC Building can foster research in treating brain, spinal cord, and nerve disorders by putting researchers and clinicians under the same roof and creating an environment that enables them to collaborate.

“The design of the facility needed to include a connection to WSU’s existing animal laboratory facility in the basement of an adjacent building, which necessitated a secured first-floor connection. The first floor also needed to be able to accommodate future large-scale imaging equipment. These constraints required a design solution where vibration-sensitive equipment, including a million-dollar scanning electron microscope (SEM), would be required to be housed on a second floor. While this conclusion was the proper design response, having equipment with requirements to provide 100,000x magnification on an elevated slab was a source of concern throughout the project.

Our design team eventually recommended the Cobiax void slab system and presented design calculations and some overseas case studies to confirm the system would perform as needed, as well as provide the best value from a price and performance perspective.

After the move of the equipment into the building, WSU had a technician come to re-calibrate the SEM. In its previous location in the basement, the scope was able to be calibrated to 100,000x magnification. After the technician completed his calibrations, he reported he was able to calibrate the SEM to achieve 200,000x magnification, confirming the impressive performance of the Cobiax system.”

— Robert A. Thompson, Facilities Manager, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio

Project Voided Slab Achievements:

• Met strict vibration criteria

• Proved a better alternative to waffle-slab construction

• Improved both constructability and space efficiency