The Future. Built Smarter.

New R&D center a true garden of innovation

In this episode of The Future Built Smarter, Jeff Ryan, Managing Principal for Design at Christner Architects, joins us for a discussion on the Ball Helix Central Research & Development Center, winner of a 2022 Design Excellence Merit Award for Innovation from Lab Manager magazine. Christner was the architect, lab planner, and interior designer for the project, and IMEG provided structural, MEP, fire protection, and civil design, in addition to commissioning services. The center transforms the research culture and the scientific capabilities of Ball Horticultural Company, the world’s largest ornamental seed producer. In collaboration with Ball’s steering committee, the design team identified three design principles for the project. “One was, of course, to enable great science,” Jeff says, adding that the company—with an average employee tenure of 27 years—was experiencing a wave of Baby Boomer retirements. “So, they really wanted to elevate their ability to attract researchers and enable new and existing staff in their ability to do great work.” The second goal was to evolve the company work culture through strengthening the existing collaboration, trust, mentoring, communication, respect, and safety, and adding focus on employee happiness, productivity, and wellness. “Finally, they wanted to communicate all the great research that was coming out of the center,” Jeff adds. This would be accomplished by:

• Improved connectivity between research and business through shared spaces, transparency, and science on display
• Creating technology and spaces for global communication and collaboration
• Enhancing client visitors’ experiences with connections to the science, the gardens, and the greater Ball Horticultural Company brand

 

A central part of the project involved incorporating the center’s existing demonstration garden into the overall design of the new building. “This garden is beautiful, and we decided to leverage it in the scientific space with the idea that the researchers would be engaged with the garden as a physical representation of the work they're doing,” Jeff says. “The building is formed so that the garden pushes into the middle of the research space and you can see it from wherever you are. You can see it from the office space and from within the labs and even from the back of house with windows that penetrate all the way through the research space. It’s a stimulating environment for discovery.”

In addition to this podcast, you can learn more about the Ball Helix project and see photos of the facility by reading the Christner Architects project story and the IMEG case study.

The Quadruple Aim & the Built Environment, Part 5: Improving provider satisfaction

Improving provider satisfaction is examined in the final episode in a series of podcasts based on the IMEG executive guide, “Enhancing the Quadruple Aim through Data-Driven Decisions in the Built Environment.” This episode features two healthcare providers—Dr. Anne Doran, a pediatric hospitalist at Advocate Children’s Hospital, Chicago, and Dr. Megan Morgan, a registered nurse and pediatric nurse educator at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Both share their experiences as healthcare providers who have worked in a variety of settings. “The caregiver experience has evolved over time as we've become more patient- and family-centered and try to deliver care in a way where we partner with not only the entire healthcare team but have the family be part of it as well,” says Dr. Doran. “It’s a lot more collaborative with families and the entire caregiver team —including nurses, therapists, social workers, case managers. The evolution has been great for families and a lot more collaborative for the team.” The two caregivers also offer input on how to address staff burnout through such things as employee assistance programs and caregiver-only respite spaces. “A chapel, rooftop garden, or areas that families use for respite aren't always ideal locations for caregivers to seek respite,” says Dr. Morgan, whose facility has “tranquility rooms” for staff to utilize. “Having a space that is dedicated to each floor or unit for employees to go and just seek five minutes of respite—maybe that's all the time they have in their day besides a lunch break—is so important.”

SE 2050: A Call for Structural Engineers to Eliminate Embodied Carbon

In the first of two episodes on reducing embodied carbon in structural systems, IMEG structural engineer Laura Hagan joins Mike Lawless and Joe Payne in a discussion about SE 2050, which calls on all structural engineers to understand, reduce, and ultimately eliminate embodied carbon in their projects by the year 2050. The SE 2050 Challenge was developed by the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) and the SE 2050 Commitment Program developed by the Sustainability Committee of the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). IMEG joined the Commitment in April. “Structural engineers have always played an important role in the design of a project; now we are able to look at what we are doing through a different lens and see the role we can play in being able to reduce the environmental effects of the buildings we design,” says Hagan. “The more we understand about how to make reductions in embodied carbon, the better the buildings will be for the client, the owner, users of the buildings, the surrounding communities, and the planet as a whole. I’m also looking forward to seeing what happens in the material industries, because we’re going to need a lot of innovation in the materials before we get to the year 2050.”

Life Cycle Analysis: Calculating the embodied carbon in building materials

In the second of two episodes on reducing embodied carbon in structural systems, IMEG structural engineer Laura Hagan discusses life cycle analysis (LCA), which, in the context of the built environment, examines the lifetime environmental impacts of the different materials used in a building’s construction. The analysis provides data on the embodied carbon arising from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and eventual disposal or reuse of structural and architectural materials. This information enables clients to understand and compare the potential embodied carbon of various design options. “We’re looking at each and every structural and architectural component—that’s the industry focus right now,” says Hagan. “What’s coming in the near future will be mechanical, electrical, and plumbing components as well.”

The Quadruple Aim & the Built Environment, Part 4: Enhancing Joe’s experience

Podcast co-host Joe Payne recently spent a fitful night in the hospital. How his experience—and that of all patients—could be improved is examined in the fourth of a series of episodes based on the IMEG executive guide, “Enhancing the Quadruple Aim through Data-Driven Decisions in the Built Environment,” Guest Corey Gaarde, a biomedical engineer and healthcare information technology specialist at IMEG, discusses how the built environment can help healthcare organizations improve the Quadruple Aim’s third goal, enhancing the patient experience. “The patient journey starts at home and ends at home,” he says. “If there are ways that we can bring home-level types of experiences into the healthcare environment, why not? Things like an Alexa-based device in the patient room to play music, to change the television, to control the lights, all hands-free. Things like this are very easy to do in a hotel setting, so why not do them in a patient care environment? ‘Hospital’ is part of the word ‘hospitality, right? We need to push architects and engineers to think this way, IT to think this way, push the design space, and really consider what the overall future vision of a smart patient room or experience looks like.”

The Quadruple Aim & the Built Environment, Part 3: Reducing the Cost of Care

In the third of a series of episodes based on the executive guide, “Enhancing the Quadruple Aim through Data-Driven Decisions in the Built Environment,” Joel Yow, co-founder of linear A, discusses how the built environment can help healthcare organizations achieve the Quadruple Aim’s second goal, reducing the cost of care. “You don’t want to make an investment in a new building that’s meant to reduce the cost of care, and then misplace it or mistime it and then just generally increase the cost of care by not really thinking through the data enough,” he says. “When looking at patient origin, for example, we’ve provided reports and data to clients that show them where their patient populations are coming from in relation to where they are currently located. It always surprises me how often there are two or three people out of 10 in a room who say, ‘I had no idea this high of a percentage is coming from out of state,’ or that ‘this many people are in a service area in which we don’t have any facilities or assets.’ There is this lightbulb that goes off where they realize they really need to understand their patients better in order to better serve them.”

The Quadruple Aim & the Built Environment, Part 2: Improving Population Health

Numerous healthcare organizations have adopted the guiding principles of the Quadruple Aim—a framework for healthcare excellence, the goals of which can be greatly supported through an intentionally designed built environment. In the second of a series of episodes based on the executive guide, “Enhancing the Quadruple Aim through Data-Driven Decisions in the Built Environment,” IMEG Director of Sustainability Adam McMillen discusses how the built environment can help healthcare organizations achieve the first goal, improving population health.

The Quadruple Aim & the Built Environment, Part 1: Healthcare’s Dynamic Duo

Numerous healthcare organizations have adopted the guiding principles of the Quadruple Aim, a framework for healthcare excellence that focuses on improving population health, reducing the cost of care, enhancing the patient experience, and improving provider satisfaction. Many of these organizations, however, are missing out on opportunities to support these desired outcomes through an intentionally designed built environment. In the first of a series of episodes based on the executive guide, “Enhancing the Quadruple Aim through Data-Driven Decisions in the Built Environment,”IMEG Director of Healthcare Mike Zorich provides a high-level explanation of the Quadruple Aim and offers examples of various design strategies and elements that can enhance it—and ultimately help the healthcare industry deliver better outcomes for patients, caregivers, communities, and the world.

5 steps to begin the process of decarbonizing your building

In the final episode in our series on sustainability strategies of the future, IMEG Director of Sustainability Adam McMillen discusses five steps any owner can take to begin the process of decarbonizing their building. “There's a lot of discussion today about decarbonizing — the push to make sure we all electrify our buildings because the grid will get cleaner in the future. This is a big change, and a lot of owners are wondering how to wade into it without a lot of risk,” says McMillen. “So, we’re summarizing five things owners can do today that don't cost a lot of money and that will help ensure their buildings will be ready for electrification—whether it's a new building, or even an existing building that's undergoing a major renovation.”

Battery storage: Clean energy for a rainy day — and peak demand relief

Battery energy storage is examined in part five of our series on sustainability strategies of the future. “Most of us in the industry have had a lot of questions about batteries,” says IMEG Director of Sustainability Adam McMillen. “When does it make sense? When will they be cost competitive? How do they fit into the big picture? These are all good questions because the last thing you want to do is put some expensive, embodied-carbon heavy, lithium-ion batteries on your campus and then have them not really do much for you.” Co-host Mike Lawless, IMEG Direction of Innovation, joins Adam in delving into these questions. They also discuss the many future opportunities of this strategy, such as pairing batteries with renewables such as wind and solar to provide facilities with both reliable and sustainable backup power when the grid goes down as well as a method to eliminate expensive peak demand charges from utilities.

Battery energy storage is examined in part five of our series on sustainability strategies of the future. “Most of us in the industry have had a lot of questions about batteries,” says IMEG Director of Sustainability Adam McMillen. “When does it make sense? When will they be cost competitive? How do they fit into the big picture? These are all good questions because the last thing you want to do is put some expensive, embodied-carbon heavy, lithium-ion batteries on your campus and then have them not really do much for you.” Co-host Mike Lawless, IMEG Direction of Innovation, joins Adam in delving into these questions. They also discuss the many future opportunities of this strategy, such as pairing batteries with renewables such as wind and solar to provide facilities with both reliable and sustainable backup power when the grid goes down as well as a method to eliminate expensive peak demand charges from utilities.