The new Vet Med 3B building at the University of California, Davis shows how state-of-the-art research laboratories can also achieve high sustainability goals – especially when they’re being constructed by an expert like Sundt. The $38.4 million project will be complete this month.
Vet Med 3B will provide research space for the university’s School of Veterinary Medicine. It contains laboratories; support space; research, academic and administrative offices; a small-animal vivarium; a Biosafety Level 3 Suite; and centralized service space to serve the research needs of multiple departments.
“This is the most technical, exacting lab project I’ve ever worked on, and I’ve built a lot of them,” said Sundt Project Manager Joel Witt. “The building was designed in a fully integrated manner to provide very high performance at a low operating cost, which is why the most challenging aspect of the job is making sure that materials and equipment meet the project’s exacting energy efficiency requirements. Every design decision was driven by an ideal of highest level of function at lowest long-term operating cost.”
The university construction project was awarded the California Energy Efficiency Partnership’s Best Practice Award in Best Overall Sustainable Design in 2009 for design and construction innovations. It is also on track to achieve LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.