We are pleased to announce the grand opening of the University of Alabama at Birmingham – Cancer Center (Wallace Tumor Institute and New Cancer Center). This Friday a project several years in the making celebrates its official opening and our own George Marsh will speak during Friday’s event. The project has two hearts; a new atrium illuminating the renovated research labs above and the new cyclotron below. The Cancer Center’s goal is to create an identifiable new front door and image to the community with newly renovated space for consolidated programs in the six-story Wallace Tumor Institute, to create a synergy for the cancer faculty and their research between the inpatient and outpatient hospital settings. The design met the three requests made by the director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dr. Ed Partridge at the outset, “1) A front door. The building didn’t have one. 2) Lots of light. 3) A design that fosters collaboration between scientists,” quoted in an article this week from AL.com.
The two-story lobby opens to a new glass façade at street level and brings visitors up an open staircase to the Level 2 connections to the hospitals. The open experience continues vertically as an atrium surrounded by offices and break areas on the upper floors, providing a much needed sense of place, with laboratories on the perimeter. “Sneak peek of $50 million renovation of UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center’s hub,” published by AL.com offers further insights from Dr. Partridge and details about the project’s impact within the community.
Cape Cod Community College’s Frank and Maureen Wilkens Science and Engineering Center is a net-positive energy building designed to transform the heart of campus.
The project approaches sustainability through a holistic and global approach, implementing a range of moves including passive solar shading overhangs, air-source heat pumps, high performance materials with low embodied carbon and the expansion of the range of thermal comfort and lighting power density. Combined with on-site photovoltaics, the project achieves net-positive energy use.
The project’s thermally modified wood rainscreen façade is a study of the modern expression of vernacular Cape Cod architecture while reducing embodied carbon. Early lifecycle assessments identified the immense carbon savings of wood over fiber cement. The design team did not stop there, furthering reductions by peeling back unnecessary finishes like carpet and ceilings. Together, these decisions enabled a 19% reduction in embodied carbon.
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