Science + Technology Design
Project Portfolio
About CMTA
CMTA was founded in 1968 and is recognized as a national leader in high performance, sustainable design within the engineering industry. Our firm has leveraged our expertise in high performance, energy-efficient design into a nationwide practice that includes consulting engineering, performance contracting and zero energy design, technology solutions, and commissioning services.
CMTA prides itself on its data-driven, performance-based design process. Performance-based design uses benchmarking of our projects’ real-world energy usage as a challenge to our engineers to continuously improve energy performance. CMTA’s first signature performance-based design project was Richardsville Elementary School, the nation’s first operational Zero Energy school. Since then, our Zero Energy projects have led our firm into the national spotlight.
Because we walk the talk, we are true partners vested in sharing our knowledge with our clients. Our corporate headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky and our Lexington, Kentucky offices are both zero energy buildings with perfect ENERGY STAR scores. And our CMTA Energy Solutions corporate office in Louisville is the first in the U.S. to operate as Zero Energy and achieve WELL Gold certification. CMTA strives to create strong relationships with building owners and managers while also focusing on the health and comfort of the people who live, work, and play in spaces we design.
CMTA Headquarters Campus Louisville, Kentucky
CMTA Energy Solutions
Corporate Office
Louisville, Kentucky
Occupant Health + Wellness
CMTA’s buildings are moving beyond energy efficiency and sustainability to lead the industry’s focus on improving occupant health. Our team has a vast understanding of the building performance metrics and design strategies that improve the built environment for occupant comfort and wellness. This knowledge allows us to be successful in incorporating strategies that improve the health and wellbeing of the occupant while still maintaining budget and energy efficiency goals.
Our continuous drive for improvement fuels our research into Indoor air quality, lighting, and comfort as markers for occupant wellness. This allows us to incorporate proven strategies into every project we complete. We focus on delivering the
best value for the building owner and the occupants, which goes beyond costs, and improves human health while maintaining budget and energy-efficiency goals.
Walking the Talk
We take great pride in being thought leaders, paving the way for others to follow. We accept this challenge with enthusiasm and responsibility. CMTA is a firm that has built its reputation on research and datadriven design.
We designed our own corporate office to achieve WELL Gold and operate Zero Energy. In 2020, the CMTA Energy Solutions Corporate Office became the first WELL Gold Certified, Zero Energy Building in the country.
We spend about 85% of our lives in buildings, and it is essential that architects and engineers understand how the built environment affects the health and wellness of its occupants.
University of Indiana
Bloomington, Regional Academic Health Center
Bloomington, Indiana
University of Kentucky, Simulation Lab
Lexington, Kentucky
Technology + Security Expertise
We provide comprehensive technology solutions for science + tech clients nationally. Our team understands that today’s modern laboratories and research centers are seeing an increase in technology to meet staff needs. Therefore, our team strives to design, integrate, streamline, and procure systems to be as simple as they can be.
Our technology/security team brings decades of experience designing lowvoltage systems for the science + tech markets across the country. We design technology to be a staff multiplier, increasing efficiency and allowing the staff greater flexibility as they perform their duties, and ensuring safety.
Another key feature of our team’s focus is flexibility and expandability. Technology is a rapidly advancing in these fields and our team designs to provide flexibility in the short-term and expandability for future needs. We achieve these results while maintaining a focus on bottom-line costs. We believe that the key to managing these criteria successfully is to engage the facility owner and the design team at the start of a project. Our team leads charrettes and work groups to gather input and develop a technology and security plan that achieves the client’s goals. This project also creates buy-in from the design team, departmentlevel end-users, and facility managers alike.
Science + Technology
When it comes to science and technology, we understand the importance of designing a space that supports state-of-the-art equipment and technology while fostering innovation and focusing on life safety. Due to the intricacies of these spaces, we also encourage input from the owner and work directly with equipment suppliers to design systems specific to the owner’s needs.
Our team brings decades of experience designing science and technology spaces for commercial, higher education, federal, and healthcare clients. Examples of our clientele include the National Institutes of Health, MedImmune, and numerous hospitals and universities across the country. Our team also has project experience with animal care and treatment facilities, many accredited by USDA.
North Dakota State University, Veterinary Diagnostics Lab Fargo, North Dakota
Joint Replacement Division Facility Conversion
Confidential Client | Weston, Florida
CMTA designed mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection systems for the conversion of a single-story building into a 90,000 SF workspace and 61,500 SF industrial warehouse/ assembly space. The building serves as a Research & Development space for the Joint Replacement division of the medical technology company. The goal was to bring about 500 staff from two offices under one roof.
The workspace includes 25 private offices, 370 workstations, 12-15 huddle rooms, conference rooms, fabrication and research
lab space, and conference rooms. The industrial warehouse component houses a receiving inspection office, forklift charging, and foam packaging.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2020
Size: 151,500 SF
Cost: $23,000,000
Project Type: Renovation
– LEED Certified
Veterinary Diagnostics Laboratory
North Dakota State University | Fargo, North Dakota
The modern, highly efficient North Dakota State University Veterinary Diagnostics Lab was designed to provide the university and surrounding areas with the resources to support veterinary science research and advancement. The new facility offers expanded laboratory and office space and features significant layout enhancements for safety and efficiency.
The lab contains top-of-the-line technology and equipment and provides testing and diagnostic services for veterinarians, animal owners and producers, and the public health sector. The facility offers services for toxicology, bacteriology, virology, molecular diagnostic, clinical and anatomic pathology, parasitology, and serology testing. With a 2-ton capacity crane and incinerator, the staff is able to move and dispose of large specimens.
The building includes several environmental design features. It is situated on an east-west linear basis to provide abundant tempered daylighting into the laboratory spaces on the north side of the building. The facility also employs a geothermal system for heating and cooling to aid in energy and carbon reduction and lower operating costs.
The lab contains Biosafety Levels 2 & 3 rooms suitable for work with infectious agents. The laboratory is fully accredited by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2017
Size: 24,000 SF
Cost: $18,000,000
Project Type: New Facility
Awards / Certifications:
– 2022 ASHRAE Technology Award 1st Place Region VI, New Building Commercial
Health Innovation Center
Northern Kentucky University | Highland Heights, Kentucky
Northern Kentucky University embarked on an ambitious addition/renovation project at Founders Hall, creating NKU’s secondlargest academic building totaling 210,000 square feet with a 108,000 square-foot addition. This new $97,000,000 building creates a truly interdisciplinary education opportunity that will be used to help train future healthcare professionals in and around the region.
NKU wanted to pursue energy conservation aggressively. The existing building was connected to the campus’s central chilled water and steam utilities; however, the design team implemented a hybrid approach utilizing both campus utilities
as well as a new geothermal well field which would serve a portion of the existing building. This hybrid approach used water source heat pumps in the classrooms, chilled beams in the laboratory spaces, and traditional VAV air handling units in the Vivarium. The result was a building designed with an EUI of 68, which utilizes 50% less energy than the baseline code requirements.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2018
Size: 210,000 SF
Cost: $93,000,000
Project Type: New Facility
Houston Advanced Research Center
The Woodlands, Texas
The Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) built a new campus on 3.5 acres adjacent to its existing campus. HARC, a non-profit established in 1982, serves as a hub for basic research and technology development. The center focuses on sustainable development with emphasis on sustainability issues providing independent analysis on energy, air, and water issues to people seeking scientific answers and operating as a research hub finding solutions for a sustainable future.
Aligning with HARC’s sustainable mission, the two-story building was designed to reduce energy consumption by approximately 70% and has achieved LEED Platinum. To reach this goal, the project was designed to be highly energy efficient with minimal water consumption.
The organization uses the facility as a teaching tool to demonstrate how sustainable features can be used in commercial construction. The building’s high-performance design features include a budgetconscious thermally-vented rain screen, strategically placed exterior windows to allow the introduction of natural light while minimizing the impact on the heating and cooling system, geothermal heating and cooling systems, and an all-LED lighting system. In addition, a geothermal heat pump system is provided to air-condition the building. Besides being energy efficient, the geothermal systems also help reduce maintenance costs by eliminating exterior HVAC equipment.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2017
Size: 20,000 SF
Cost: $6,500,000
Project Type: New Facility
Awards / Certifications:
LEED Platinum
Zero Energy
Jacobs Science Building
University of Kentucky | Lexington, Kentucky
A regional leader in higher education, the University of Kentucky recently demolished three outdated buildings and constructed a brand-new Jacobs Academic Sciences building. Housing lab spaces, classrooms, and TEAL (technology-enhanced active learning) rooms, the new Academic Sciences building required CMTA to provide detailed energy modeling as part of the data-driven design.
By engineering a new solution to laboratory energy usage – an exhaust system that can be turned off when not in use – CMTA saved the University $50,000 annually through the fume hood airflow reductions alone. In addition, our site-wide audit of all the energy-using systems meant that the new building could be included in the University’s central energy plant system while still reducing energy usage by 37% over the baseline building.
The overall result of this project is a beautiful, energy-efficient building that is a destination for students, even when they aren’t in class. In addition, the energy cost savings gives the University more opportunities to enrich the lives of its student population. At the same time, the open atrium and public seating areas provide gathering spaces that didn’t exist in student laboratory buildings on the University of Kentucky’s campus before.
Project at a Glance Completion: 2016
Size: 263,000 SF
Cost: $110,000,000
Project Type: New Facility
Awards / Certifications: – LEED Silver
37% Energy Use Reduction
Health Sciences Building
University of Cincinnati | Cincinnati, Ohio
CMTA provided full MEP design services for the University of Cincinnati’s new Health Sciences Building, which includes 117,000 square feet of classroom, laboratory, office, and open gathering spaces.
CMTA is proud to have overcome many unique design challenges, while meeting the high expectations of the University of Cincinnati, and their partner architecture firms. We were able to reduce energy needs while coordinating with designers to conceal the building’s MEP systems, and operate within the University’s traditional budget. By working closely with the construction management company, the design time was able to stay within the project budget without sacrificing user programming requirements.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2019
Size: 117,000 SF
Cost: $48,000,000
Project Type: New Facility
Aldevron Campus Expansion
Aldevron, LLC | Fargo, North Dakota
Aldevron is a company of forward-thinking, thought-leading, and innovative individuals working together to advance biological sciences worldwide. It’s the kind of company with a mission, vision, and values that resonate with us.
Our team was part of Aldevron’s first 70,000 square-foot office building design in Fargo. The current building, completed in 2018, is used for the production of DNA and protein products, while the expansion includes three new buildings. The first new building contains a 20,000 SF warehouse and distribution center. Given the nature of the space, temperature and humidity control are present at floor and mid-height, and are validated continuously per GMP standards.
The second building is an administration building, and the third is an industry-leading research and development center with technological operations and a training center.
The new facilities support the company’s growth and accommodate more than 1,000 employees.
Project at a Glance Completion: 2021
Size: 189,000 SF
Project Type: Addition & Renovation
School of Medicine & Health Sciences
University of North Dakota | Grand Forks, North Dakota
The University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, the state’s only medical school, decided to replace its aging facility to increase enrollment, attract distinguished faculty and staff, provide more collaboration among departments, and retain graduates.
The new School of Medicine and Health Sciences accommodates students and staff from all eight school departments in medical, health, and basic sciences. In the past, the departments were housed in separate campus locations due to a lack of space. The new facility allows for collaboration among students and staff in different fields, helping students learn about areas outside of their specialization.
The main floor includes an auditorium, gathering spaces, a cafeteria, and a highly detailed simulation center designed for public access. There’s approximately 80,000 square feet of laboratory space, including a vivarium and a BSL-2 lab. Every space, including the anatomy classroom, is designed with access to sunlight, which is highly unusual in medical education.
Project at a Glance Completion: 2016
Size: 375,000 SF
Cost: $123,750,000
Project Type: New Facility Awards / Certifications: AIA North Dakota Merit Award, 2017 American School & University Outstanding Design Award, 2018
Ecolab Advanced Design Center
Eagan, Minnesota
Ecolab is a global leader in water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services, with a focus on making the world cleaner, safer, and healthier.
Ecolab opened its Advanced Design Center in 2021. The 22,000 square-foot state-ofthe-art innovation center allows Ecolab’s global healthcare division to partner with medical device industry customers. With a focus on infection prevention solutions,
Ecolab is using the center to develop custom sterile barriers and equipment drapes for hospitals and surgery centers. The Advanced Design Center contains offices, collaboration spaces, a pre-fab pilot plant cleanroom, and a warehouse.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2021
Size: 22,000 SF
Project Type: Renovation
National Institutes of Health – Rockledge Center
Bethesda, Maryland
CMTA provided MEP consulting services to help define the detailed scope of work necessary to meet GSA’s lease obligations. This process included performing a detailed existing MEP systems condition assessment and LEED Gap analysis.
Attention to sustainable design principles is important both for the comfort and well-being of NIH staff and the conservation of resources and government funds. The green goals focus on the principles of energy conservation, intelligent building control systems, resource and waste management, use of environmentally responsible materials with recycled content, low emissions from volatile organic compounds (VOCs), durability, and local availability. Incorporating natural light deep into the space (along with LED light fixtures) is an important strategy for both energy savings and encouraging a productive work environment.
Highlights:
– Building 8 Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases
– Building 10 complex Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center and Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center
– Building 49 Silvio O. Conte Building
– National Heart Lung and Blood Institute
– Building 50 Louis Stokes Laboratory Autoclave
– Building 11 Reverse Osmosis Plant
– US Drug Enforcement Agency Drug analysis Lab
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2020
Size: 500,000 SF
Cost: $90,000,000
Project Type: Existing Facility Planning & Design
Awards / Certifications: LEED Gold
Ogden College Hall
Western Kentucky University | Bowling Green, Kentucky
Ogden College Hall has been recognized as one of the healthiest higher education buildings in the country by the International Well Building Institute. The new building was designed to visually illustrate the STEM curriculum and the College’s research initiatives to create a showplace for scientific exploration and discovery. In this WELL Gold-certified building, students learn in an environment that actively promotes their health and wellness through intentional design.
The facility contains 104 fume hoods for both teaching and research laboratories, and features over 30 labs for biology, chemistry, physics, and astronomy. Also included are student advising offices, a 300seat auditorium, and the Ogden College of Science and Engineering office suite.
Energy savings strategies for the project include reduced fume sash positions, auto sash closers, demand control ventilation, seasonal condensing boiler used for
first stage heating, and variable primary pumping. Electrical savings features include LED lighting throughout the building and the use of vacancy sensors. Energy
savings strategies are projected to save the university $150,000 annually in utilities.
Ogden College Hall is a ground-breaking facility proving that exceptional laboratory and learning space can be more energy efficient, safer, and healthier with minimal extra cost. It’s a building that will positively impact the STEM research and study at WKU.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2018
Size: 82,000 SF
Cost: $40,000,000
Project Type: Addition & Renovation
Awards / Certifications:
WELL V2 Gold
LEED Gold
BioSquare Labs
Boston Medical Center | Boston, Massachusetts
BioSquare Discovery & Innovation Center (BDIC) combines state-of-the-art, research facilities with comprehensive tenant amenities and services, all within a hub for scientific innovation. CMTA was engaged to provide comprehensive energy assessment services for a 182,000 SF laboratory building that was constructed in 1998.
The building houses the Boston University School of Dental Medicine classroom and research spaces, and two BSL-3 labs. The upper levels contain open lab areas with associated office and conference spaces. Additionally, the core areas include tissue culture, animal procedure rooms, cold rooms, autoclaves, and equipment rooms.
CMTA worked with Boston Medical Center (BMC), Boston University Medical Center (BUMC), and the local utility company to develop energy savings strategies to reduce the EUI (486/sf/yr) and utility cost of ~$2,550,000/year.
CMTA reviewed multiple energy conservation measures and multiple energy reduction items were identified. After discussion with BMC, BUMC, and the utility companies, it was decided to proceed with development of two major ECM concepts:
ECM-1: Reduce lab supply air changes (ACH) and implement thermostat setback during unoccupied hours.
ECM-2: Convert constant volume (CV) terminal boxes to variable air volume (VAV), reduce unoccupied ACH and implement thermostat setback in offices associated with laboratories during unoccupied hours.
After ECM 1 & 2 were implemented, the building EUI was reduced by 11% to 434 kbtu/sf/yr which translates to a cost savings of 15% ($360,000/yr).
Project at a Glance Completion: 2018 Size: 182,000 SF Cost: $8,500,000
Wind Tunnel Lab & Aerospace Innovation Complex
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University | Daytona Beach, Florida
CMTA designed mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and low voltage engineering systems for the multi-phased development at the Daytona Beach campus. The building includes classroom space and six wind tunnels equipped with multicomponent force balances for aerodynamic measurement. The wind tunnel building’s HVAC system ties into the CEP that serves the adjacent Aerodynamics laboratory multi-phased development of the EmbryRiddle Daytona Beach Campus.
This space is both a classroom and a laboratory for aerodynamics courses. Both teaching and testing take place here, allowing students both a theoretical and hands-on approach to learning. This facility
houses 6 wind tunnels. The wind tunnels are equipped with multi-component force balances for aerodynamic measurement. Additional equipment includes hot wire anemometers, pressure scanners and various flow probes. Water tunnels are available for flow visualization as well as a water table for approximating shock wave behavior. A blow down supersonic wind tunnel (capable of Mach 3.5) is also available for visualizing shock waves using a Shadowgraph/Schlieren system.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2017
Size: 18,000 SF
Cost: $15,000,000
Project Type: New Construction
