National Bio and Agro Defense Facility (NBAF)
Manhattan, Kansas
Researching and developing response measures for high-consequence livestock diseases is a sensitive, collaborative process and so is being the engineering firm responsible for lead mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design for a facility as complex as this. ccrd has been charged with the task of providing all this plus specialty fields of engineering for the BSL-4 facility, the FDA current Good Manufacturing Practice Facility, site infrastructure, and commissioning specialty research laboratories.
The new National Bio and Agro Defense Facility (NBAF) will be located on the campus of Kansas State University. This new facility will replace the existing Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a Federal complex where research on foreign animal diseases has been ongoing since 1954. NBAF is being built in response to threats facing our nation that could potentially jeopardize the $95 billion U.S. agriculture industry and health.
This new facility will be an integrated human, foreign animal, and zoonotic disease research, development, and testing facility that will accommodate biosafety level BSL2,BSL3, BSL4r esearch. It will include basic and advanced research, diagnostic testing and validation, countermeasure development and diagnostic training for high-consequence livestock diseases with potentially devastating impacts to the U.S. public health and agriculture. This important Science and Technology research complex will also enhance capabilities to meet the mandated national and bio and agro-defense missions requirements of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
NBAF will provide a full range of animal research, diagnostic, and training capabilities, with a focus on the more hazardous pathogen and disease spectrum. The completed facility will house multiple levels of bio-containment spaces. The BSL-2 level lab will accommodate research using moderately hazardous bacteria and viruses that can affect humans, animals, and the environment. Antidotes and vaccines are available for diseases resulting from exposure to these pathogens.
The BSL-3 and 3Enhances lab spaces will focus on disease agents requiring more stringent levels of containment. These agents may cause serious or lethal disease to those exposed to them, but, again, antidotes and vaccines exist to treat the disease. The BSL-3Ag spaces are designed for research and diagnostic operations on large animals using agents that are deadly to animals (but not humans). The facility construction for BSL-3Ag spaces require near air-tight rooms and are very similar to those of the next level, the BSL-4 level lab. This highest level of lab provides high containment research lab space for the study of pathogens that have no known antidote and could cause serious illness or death.
Engineering projects this one demand the highest levels of right-brain creativity buttressed by the left-brained conscientiousness. This is just the sort of engineering project that ccrd loves to dig into. It’s another example of where MEP engineering needs to be as much art as science.
Architect: Flad/Perkins + Will Joint Venture
Owner: Department of Homeland Security
Project Size: 520,000 sf
Completion: Estimated 2015
Construction Cost: $550M
Scope of Services
Mechanical
Electrical
Plumbing
Fire Protection
IT Communications
Commissioning