PBA provided MEP engineering for Northern Michigan University's Weston Hall Lab Addition, working with Neumann/Smith Architecture. It was familiar ground: PBA designed the MEP systems for the original Weston Hall.
NMU's biology and chemistry programs had outgrown their space. Biology enrollment alone grew from about 250 undergraduates in 2000 to 670. The answer: a three-story wing on Weston Hall with six new teaching and research labs.
Lab additions are demanding. Fume hoods exhaust large volumes of air that must be replaced with conditioned outdoor air, and that exhaust has to be carried clear of nearby intakes. This addition also had to tie into an existing building with no spare heating capacity.
PBA designed a single mixed-air energy recovery unit to deliver a high percentage of outdoor air for ventilation and fume hood makeup while recovering energy from the exhaust.
Rather than add plant equipment, PBA extended steam from Weston Hall to new heat exchangers and confirmed NMU’s multi-building chilled water network could carry the new load. No new chillers were needed.
To keep lab exhaust from re-entering the addition or neighboring buildings, PBA worked with a third-party consultant on a re-entrainment study that set outlet locations and discharge velocities. When the penthouse footprint was reduced late in design, PBA re-laid out the equipment to fit.
The addition opened in fall 2025 with new labs, including a microscopy suite and a cell culture facility with 12 biosafety cabinets, plus 15 faculty offices. Its systems were designed for quiet teaching spaces, lean on existing campus steam and chilled water, and use equipment familiar to NMU's facilities staff.
Nearly three decades after PBA engineered the original Weston Hall, the new wing draws its heating and cooling from it.
