The Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin enrolled its first class in May 2016. The school’s 260,000-square-foot, eight-story Health Discovery Building is used primarily for research and houses 97,000 square feet of laboratory space, a 20,000-square-foot vivarium with expansion capabilities and 15,000 square feet of core labs.

A technology incubator in the building — a rarity in academia — helps ensure that promising research from across campus reaches the global marketplace. From the mechanical side, the project’s energy efficient systems are particularly unique.

They include:

• Chilled beams throughout the lab spaces
• Energy recovery coils to reclaim exhaust loads
• Variable frequency drives on air handling units, fans, and pumps to optimize performance
• Installation of Edstrom laboratory piping system for watering of testing animals in the vivarium area.
• Process piping and vents meant to serve a cyclotron and associated equipment.