Stanford University, Center for Clinical Sciences Research
About This Project
Location: Center for Clinical Sciences Research, Stanford, California
Architects: Sir Norman Foster
Contractors: Rudolph and Sletten Construction
About the Client: Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford University is recognized as one of the world’s leading research and teaching institutions.
Project Description: The Stanford School of Medicine’s Center for Clinical Sciences Research is a four-story, 225,000 square foot state-of-the-art research facility. The building includes nearly 97,000 square feet of clinical lab and lab-support space for such uses as tissue culture analysis, microscopy, human anatomy research, and temperature-sensitive processes. In addition, over 50,000 square feet of faculty offices and seminar space looks out onto the interior courtyard.
Special Features and Challenges: The project is designed with two wings separated by a 20,500 square foot courtyard. Pedestrian bridges connect the wings at each level. The labs take advantage of the natural light by being located on the perimeter of the wings. The entire project, including the courtyard, is covered horizontally by a sun shade made up of thousands of sections of closely spaced tube steel.
Nova Partners’ Role: Nova Partners was retained as the construction manager by Stanford University to manage the budget and to ensure that the project was completed in a timely and cost-effective manner.
From the Client: Nova Partners was retained as construction manager to manage this complicated and demanding project. Nova’s role involved analyzing change-order pricing and schedule impact, performing project budget analysis and reporting, resolving owner/contractor issues, and making recommendations for the design team fee disputes. This project had serious budget and contractor problems that arose from my predecessors structure of the contracts. Nova was able to scrutinize scope changes and help us to accurately understand and properly enforce the contractors obligations under their contract. We are grateful for Nova’s aggressive but reasonable approach to tackling the issues on a complicated and sophisticated project of this scale and magnitude.
— Michael Rosenthal, Associate Vice Provost, Stanford University