Projects

The Project is a 4 story 115,000 GSF building on the University of Houston Downtown campus and will house programs in chemical & molecular life sciences and engineering.  The building itself is intended to be used as a teaching tool for students as well as a showcase for sustainable design.  Shah Smith & Associates, Inc. provided mechanical, electrical and plumbing design engineering services. 

The newest addition to campus will be the first building to occupy a 17-acre tract of land purchased by UHD in 2016. This area extends north of the One Main Building and runs along White Oak Bayou and North Main Street. In addition to the College of Sciences & Technology Building, the project included a new central plant sized to serve chilled water for this building, a future health and recreation building, and a future STEM classroom building on this property.

This facility holds both research and undergraduate teaching labs, computational classrooms, commons areas for studying and student gatherings, an expansive multipurpose room, and a Full-service café.

All of the lab spaces are served by 100% outside air. There are five air handling units that serve a common supply manifold for the entire building to minimize the impact of maintenance and downtime on the system. For energy savings, non-lab supply air is returned to the manifolded air handlers to reduce the amount of outside air needed to service the building. There are four dedicated lab exhaust fans sized for N+1 that serve all of the lab spaces. Both air handlers and exhaust fans are variable volume systems controlled by VFD’s for further energy savings.  The lab air terminals feature “lab tracking” for enhanced accuracy and pressurization safety.  The HVAC systems serving labs are connected to the building generator to maintain hood exhaust and building pressurization safely. Heating water is provided by 3 qty gas fired modular boilers located in the penthouse.  Plumbing systems include house lab compressed air, house vacuum, house reverse osmosis, and a whole building softened water system. LED lighting is used for all exterior site and interior building lighting. All lighting controls are automatic ceiling sensors and dual technology wall sensors in all office spaces

A new overhead power service for the campus was provided along with underground distribution to the building and plant with provisions in the underground distribution to connect two future buildings.

The central utility plant was designed to expand in the future thus allowing two more chillers to be added. The initial plant configuration has 2 qty 600ton chillers with matching cooling towers.  All the plant piping is sized to allow the plant to expand and add 2 more 600 ton chillers and matching towers.  To ensure cooling for the new science and technology building labs, one chiller and tower is connected to the plant emergency generator.