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Best of 2006 Awards
UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School University Hospital Cancer Center
AWARD OF MERIT: Health Care and Hospitals
PHOTO BY WOODRUFF/BROWN PHOTOGRAPHY |
A new, nine-story, $79 million building in Newark, N.J., offers a venue to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of cancer primarily in minority and underserved populations.
The goal of the New Jersey Medical School’s University Hospital Cancer Center is to bring researchers, oncologists, clinicians, and patients into closer contact – and to facilitate laboratory discoveries that can quickly become treatments at the bedside. The school is part of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and sits on the southwest corner of its urban campus.
A central atrium and communication spine connect the clinical spaces on the first through third floors with the top four research floors. Other features intended to foster scientific collaboration include open lab designs and informal group spaces, such as break rooms and meeting rooms.
“It has a very innovative architectural solution that was quite unique and was extremely well executed,” one Best of 2006 judge said.
Construction on the facility finished in the fall, though final commissioning with medical equipment and a grand opening is not expected until next year.
The new facility is serving the needs of underserved populations through its status as a National Institutes of Health “Center of Excellence,” a designation that allowed it to receive federal grants. Such funding sources helped the program grow from an originally planned 68,000 sq. ft. to 220,000 sq. ft., parts of which increased the complexity of the mechanical and piping systems, such as the addition of a vivarium on the top floor.
The project involved extensive sitework on the 25,000-sq.-ft. footprint, including demolition of the existing four-story Behavioral Health Building, which required stringent abatement procedures.
Like the old building it replaces, the new facility connects to the existing University Hospital. Due to the sloping nature of the site, the project team had no clean vertical or horizontal break line for demolition, which left a staggered building edge that the project team erecting the new structure had to fill in so that it could maintain the structural soundness and weather tightness of the hospital.
On the outside, the new structure’s exterior skin features a unique combination of precast concrete panels, metal panels, louvers, curtain wall, and strip windows, all of which create a bold visual marker in Newark’s university district.
On the inside, the final design incorporates various way-finding systems and walkways to help direct visitors through the cancer center and to the neighboring medical centers, fully integrating the new building into the greater campus.
Key Players
Owner: University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
Architect: Hillier Architecture
Construction Manager: Turner Construction
Structural Engineer: Greenman- Pedersen
M-E-P Engineer: Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers
Steel Contractor: Lynchburg Steel
Concrete Contractor: Macedos Construction
Glazing-Glass: Union County Plate Glass
Electrical: Allan Briteway Electrical Contractors; Mehl Electric
Plumbing-Mechanical-HVAC: Brian Trematore Plumbing & Heating; Midwest Mechanical Contractors of New Jersey; Halo Sheetmetal
Roofing: Eagle One Roofing |
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