EAB played an important role in the initial construction and subsequent buildouts of the 625,000 square foot Zayed building at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. The HVAC systems supporting the laboratory areas contain air-to-air heat recovery systems and all systems are designed with N+1 redundancy. A full emergency power system with N+1 capacity supports the research operations, as well.
In 2011, EAB was engaged during the design phase of the project to provide commissioning design review on the MEP and Life Safety Systems. Later in the design phase in the base-building project, EAB was awarded the Testing and Balancing and the Building Commissioning scope.
Testing and Balancing
The Testing and Balancing scope included testing of the initial built-out areas, capacity testing of all core and shell equipment, domestic hot water loop balancing, and process water loop balancing. The Testing and Balancing scope also included BAS control point and sensor calibration verification with the owner and BAS vendor.
Building Commissioning
The Total Building Commissioning scope included management of the commissioning process, as well as, witnessing of factory equipment testing, creation and review of all system verification checklists, development and facilitation of all Functional Performance Testing and Integrated Systems Testing for the entire facility. Our team reviewed the owner’s training process, as well as, all O&M documentation for compliance with the project requirements.
In 2016, EAB was again engaged to provide Total System Balancing services for the build-out phase of the remaining shell areas. This included over 300,000 square feet of basic science laboratories, offices and support areas. At the eleventh hour, the owner contacted EAB to help support the remaining building commissioning activities. Our team immediately responded, and provided solutions so that the project was completed on-time.
Successful completion of this project gave EAB the recognition in the commissioning industry to continue conducting projects of this size and complexity.
“The Zayed Building project at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center was a success because of our organizational strength managing such a large project and our talented team that cohesively worked together to deliver an optimum operating facility. Our team took ownership in our roles on the project, which enabled us to hit the ground running, troubleshoot, and work together to solve any problems that arose.
I thoroughly enjoyed working with M.D. Anderson on this project as their management team asked critical questions that challenged the contractors to produce a quality project. M.D Anderson is second to none because they listened to our feedback, and became closely involved in the project.
Additionally, this was one of the first major projects to highlight both EAB Test and Balance and Building Commissioning Services. This combination was instrumental in the success of the project proving that EAB’s Commissioning services operates to the same industry leading standards as the Test and Balance side has done for 65 years.” – Jimmy Pelezo