Construction of the Syracuse Biomaterials Institute is complete, with the exception of minor details, and Syracuse University will be seeking a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification for the institute in early 2011.

‘The facilities are extremely impressive, and the word will spread out,’ said Cristina Marchetti, associate director of the SBI. ‘It’s very important when people visit to show that these are good facilities.’

After construction began a year ago, the move into the SBI, located on the third and fourth floors of Bowne Hall, started in early October. The institute is an interdisciplinary set of labs and research space that ‘promotes research across disciplines’ by bringing together faculty from various SU departments, as well as from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry and the Upstate Medical University, Marchetti said.

The SBI has about 20 faculty members, but not all of them will have office space in Bowne, she said. Most of the members will gather at Bowne for seminars and meetings or to work on research, she said. This is an improvement from when the SBI started in 2007 and did not have a physical space, she said.

‘The construction is 99 percent done,’ said Patrick Mather, director of the SBI. ‘We’re just fixing things now on the surface.’

The environmentally friendly products and practices used to build the SBI will help in obtaining the LEED certification.

The lights are controlled by proximity sensors, as well as sensors that detect ambient light, to make sure the labs never use more light than they need to, Mather said. The labs were purposely designed to allow a lot of ambient light to come in from the windows, he said.

Hood proximity sensors will also be activated in the fume hoods to turn down the speed of the fan if researchers are not at the hood, Mather said. Fume hoods, which are lab equipment that limit exposure to dangerous fumes, consume the most energy in any lab, he said.

Materials throughout campus were reused during the construction of the SBI, Mather said. The SBI members did not insist on using new materials, such as cabinets, he said. Although the materials do not match perfectly, recycling old products will help obtain the LEED certification, he said.

Paperwork for the LEED certification will probably be finished in February 2011, said Jack Osinski, the senior project manager of the Office of Campus Planning, Design and Construction. It will then take a couple months for the U.S. Green Building Council to review the paperwork and approve the certification, he said.

The labs were in use by early November, Mather said, but at least one construction worker will be in Bowne for changes, such as fine-tuning the plumbing system.

The labs were constructed to provide as much open space as possible, Mather said. This gives researchers a chance to communicate with each other and allows for more collaboration, he said.

‘We wanted just a whole lot of visual interaction and open spaces,’ he said.

Mather said SU is not the only university with a biomaterials institute, but it is ‘quite unique to have it all consolidated into one space.’ Most biomaterials research is done in single-professor labs, he said.

This new physical space will attract many visitors and help with the recruitment process, Mather said. Although the quality of the research and researchers is more important, the building is a catalyst that will improve the SBI’s reputation, he said.

‘We think we are going to get some of the best students, even away from the MITs of the world,’ he said.

Osinski said the products used were brought in from within a 500-mile radius from the construction site. This took less fuel to get them to the site, he said.

Other environmentally friendly products and practices include low-water flush toilets and low-flow faucets, as well as making sure there were little to no volatile organic compounds used in the product, such as in the adhesives and paints, Osinski said.

Said Osinski: ‘Every possible approach has been taken to use sustainable materials, products and practices.’

shkim11@syr.edu

Published on December 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm