The University of Tennessee was selected as one of the nine original sites for a National Institute of Health Regional Bio-containment Laboratory. The criteria for this building was established by NIH and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and far exceed "normal" laboratory construction. These criteria included bio-containment (nothing can be allowed to escape the lab without decontamination), secure access (nothing is allowed to enter the building without identification and inspection), blast protection (the secure areas of the building must withstand a "satchel" bomb and vehicles cannot approach within two hundred feet without inspection), agent security (all areas where CDC "select agents" are stored must be under video surveillance), and data security (the data networks internal to the facility must be severable from external networks and the internet).
The University of Tennessee hired The Horrell Group to design this 30,500 square foot facility. Key aspects of the program were to serve the University in projects related to its mouse genome expertise and to be a part of the NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) strategic biodefense system. Because of the mechanical complexities of this project, the specifications required the contractor to take our 3D building model and the layout of the ductwork, piping, and electrical and combine them into a comprehensive model to detect conflicts and reduce their occurrence in the field. As an early application of BIM (Building Information Modeling), this process was successful in minimizing the conflicts encountered during the construction.