SUNY Upstate Medical University celebrated the opening of its Upstate Cord Blood Bank, designed by Francis Cauffman, with a ribbon cutting Feb. 9.
This state-of-the-art 20,000-square-foot facility, designed for testing, processing, cryopreserving, storing and distributing life-saving cord blood, makes Syracuse home to one of only two public cord blood banks in New York state, and fewer than 30 in the entire country. The cord blood bank is located within the Community Campus of the Upstate University Hospital, and is designed to unusually high standards of energy efficiency for a laboratory building of its kind. It is expected to exceed LEED Silver standards.
Upstate Cord Blood Bank collects, stores umbilical cord blood donated by families after childbirth. This blood, collected from the placenta and umbilical cord and usually discarded as medical waste, is a rich source of stem cells that are used in life-saving medical treatments for diseases such as leukemia and sickle cell anemia. Public cord blood banks do not charge fees and make stem cells available to anyone who needs them, and donation to the Upstate Cord Blood Bank is free and available to all families in central and northern New York.
“The Cord Blood Bank at Upstate Medical University is the culmination of our understanding of the power of stem cell collection in disease prevention,” said James Crispino, president of Francis Cauffman. “Our design is intended to make the potential of this research visible by introducing a level of transparency that is unusual for a research facility, allowing a great degree of operational clarity for this vital healthcare work.”
Designed for transparency and efficiency
The cord blood bank is distinguished by a glass wall that defines its outer perimeter. This glass ring affords transparency, opening views into a corridor that fully surrounds the laboratory functions. An open research space reveals the stainless steel tanks, cooled by liquid nitrogen, that store the readily available supply of cord blood. The exterior glass ring is cantilevered from a concrete core that supports the facility’s systems.
SUNY’s stringent energy efficiency directives — a system-wide mandate that stipulates that all new buildings be built at least to LEED Silver standards — inspired Francis Cauffman to design a building that sets a benchmark for future structures of its type. Laboratory buildings of this kind must be operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and therefore typically consume large amounts of energy. Placing the cord blood lab within the perimeter corridor formed a temperate barrier that controls temperature and humidity more efficiently; this efficiency is augmented by airlocks at lab entry points and variable air volume boxes within the lab. In addition, a green roof retains 100 percent of the storm water associated with the building’s footprint.
