Building Statistics

Medical Office Building

The Medical Office Building is located in Malvern Pennsylvania on a 116 acre site that spans two townships. One hundred eleven (111) acres reside in East Whiteland Township; the remaining five (5) acres are in Tredyffrin Township.

The Medical Office Building is a commercial office for several departments. The functions of the spaces vary based on the needs of the department occupying them. Most departments have a mix of traditional and open planned office spaces, but certain departments have areas set aside as show rooms and conference rooms. A dividable auditorium, located in the basement, is available to all departments and is used for conferences and stock holder meetings. There is also a cafeteria and food service area on the ground floor which all departments share.

General Statistics

The total project cost was $37 million. This included a $7 million parking garage, $1.7 million in furniture and a $1.35 million architecture and engineering fee. The remaining $26.5 million was spent on the office building, which includes $1.2 million dollars worth of cabling costs.

Initially the project was slated as a design build project. A construction manager (CM) was hired during the design process to run cost estimates and give advice on the design. As the design neared completion, the owner felt that the CM's estimates were too high and had bid documents issued to selected contractors. Torcon, Inc. won the bid and became both the CM and General Contractor (GC) under a guaranteed maximum price contract (GMP). The project was finally completed as a design bid build project with a CM agent assisting in design.

Architecture

The Medical Office Building is both conservative and unique in its design. Because it is the third building of a larger complex that was started in 1979, it was desirable for the Medical Office Building to match the style of its predecessors. In fact, it was built to be connected to its neighbor. This decision limited the floor to floor heights and the exterior facade design since they had to match those of the existing building. However, the interior of the building was modifiable.

One of the new features of the Medical Office Building was the use of raised floors. The idea was to create a sturdy plenum for data and electrical cables which were causing sagging ceilings in two of the older buildings in the complex. Another new idea was the placement of the atrium along an exterior wall; the previous buildings had interior atriums. By placing the atrium on the outside, the architects were able to use tiling to tie the interior court with an exterior court, effectively blending the building into with its exterior. The large windows on the outside wall also flood the interior with daylight, which proves to be very refreshing for occupants who are typically trapped in open planned 'bullpens'.

Building Code Requirements

The controlling township code was that of East Whiteland. Their established standard as of this writing is BOCA 1996 edition with local amendments. One such amendment is that floor drains are forbidden in commercial and industrial construction. This code is due to East Whiteland's position in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and concerns of accidental draining of dangerous chemicals.

Zoning Requirements and Site History

The site of the building is in a large, exclusively commercial, corporate complex. Prior construction on the site includes two office buildings and an information facility. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania also classifies this site as having a "stream of exceptional value." This status meant that a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (EPDES or NPDES) permit had to be obtained before construction could begin.

Building Envelope

The building envelope of the Medical Office Building is composed of pre-cast concrete panels, a brick cavity wall, and windows. The windows are single paned and run in bands around nearly the entire building. They are separated from each other by bands of pre-cast concrete panels. The brick wraps around the bottom part of the building rising to the first floor windows, it continues to rise to the second floor in the back and to the third floor just near the atrium.

Fire Protection

Two fire protection systems are in place in the medical office building. The first system is a wet-type sprinkler system, which covers all the floors and hallways of the building. The second system is a water curtain system that protects the atrium area. Both ionized plate and infrared smoke detectors are utilized to automatically trigger the system. The entire system can also be controlled remotely from a Simplex 4100 fire alarm control panel located in the 2nd floor entrance lobby.

Transportation

Two building cores contain stairways and elevators that allow travel between the six stories of the building. Each core has a single set of stairs and two hydraulic elevators. In addition, there are sets of stairs around the atrium for those who wish to walk between the floors without heading into the stairwells.

Telecommunications

Several problems existed in the first two buildings of the Medical Office Building complex when desktop computers were implemented after construction. The additional load on the electrical grid, as well as the requested power protection was thoroughly debated, but the main problem was with the wires. The weight of additional wires placed above the suspended ceiling caused significant sagging in the first two buildings. To relieve this problem, a raised floor system was implemented in the Medical office building. Electric lines, phone lines, and closed circuit surveillance television lines totaling nearly $1.4 million were placed under the raised floor. Although this solution prevented ceilings from sagging, the floor based electric boxes are often broken and require constant replacement.

Special Features

There are several unique characteristics of the Medical Office Building. The previously mentioned raised floor is a good example of an alternative plenum space. The electrical and mechanical systems that utilize plenum spaces also have special features. A data center run by the same company that owns the Medical Office Building serves as a heat source for the over 350 perimeter heat pumps. Computers in the data center generate a significant amount of heat, a heat recovery loop runs through the center to gather this heat and carry it back to the Medical Office Building to maintain a comfortable temperature along the building's glass perimeter. The data center also has very strict electrical controls that have also been implemented into the Medical Office Building.

There are several safeguards in place on the Medical Office Building's electrical system. The first line of defense is that two feeders from different networks supply electricity, effectively eliminating blackouts. The second line of defense is the Uninterruptible Power Sources (UPS) that protect all the circuits in the building from brownouts and blackouts. The third defense system is the three day electrical generators, which can turn on in 10 seconds, and provide power for the entire complex up to three days.