Objective:
Industrial Growth
Strang was commissioned by Saint-Gobain to provide architectural and engineering design services for a 48,000 SF addition to their existing Portage facility. As Saint-Gobain continued to expand, this addition to their manufacturing facility would provide them with much-needed room to grow. Our design included new locker rooms on the south side of the building, a 2,500 SF lobby addition, a 2,600 SF conference/training room that doubles as a tornado shelter, clean rooms, as well as various support and storage spaces.
SOLUTION:
Clean Quality
The new facility provides Saint-Gobain with the capacity for continued growth and development. It consists of one large clean room at 12,000 SF that utilizes head-end equipment to support the fit-out of two additional clean rooms of approximately the same size. A highlight of this production facility are the state-of-the-art ISO 7 and 8 clean rooms, created with quality, functionality, and cleanliness at the forefront of their design. The addition’s three ISO 7 production suites are used for medical devices as well as warehousing and dock support. As the clean room’s processes are localized to a relatively small area, a project challenge involved integrating the supply air distribution and low wall returns which surround the clean room with the gantry crane slung from the structure above. Ultimately, the clean rooms were designed to support a high level of flexibility for technology, production, and business model changes.
The remaining interior space consists of mechanical and storage space to support the various functions of the facility. Building mechanical air handling equipment is housed in the mechanical space adjacent to the PC-4 clean room. The plant’s building structure is a pre-engineered metal building, and the south elevation addition was designed with a mixture of masonry and stucco to match the existing facility. The existing loading dock will be converted into a new employee entrance as interior space is transformed into a new locker room. Site improvements for the Saint-Gobain project include a parking lot addition, an access road for improved site logistics, relocation of the existing storage shed, and resurfacing of the existing parking lot.
Strang’s approach to this plant expansion was centered on designing the most efficient and cost-effective facility that would meet Saint-Gobain’s needs now, while also providing flexibility for their future.
