A systems approach to planning, defining, developing, designing, and completing a pharmacy, chemistry, and life sciences complex at a public university

The addition of a building to a major, comprehensive, urban, public university involves considerably more than contracting with architects, engineers, and construction specialists. The work presented here is a detailed systems approach to the planning, defining, developing, designing and completing of the Pharmacy, Chemistry, and Life Sciences Complex known on the campus of The University of Toledo as Wolfe Hall. Wolfe Hall is a {dollar}33 million federal, state and locally funded facility. The work is presented in sufficient detail to give the reader a sense of the enormity of the many integrated tasks and components which were required to be successfully completed from the beginning, where the requirement for a large complex science facility was demonstrated to the campus in 1976 to its dedication on April 27, 1998.; This dissertation presents not only a chronology of who did what, and when, but an engineering systems approach to the tasks such as defining a requirement for such a facility, forecasting the future use of the facility for meeting university goals, sizing the facility, garnering campus based support for the proposed construction, garnering planning funds to develop a strong program statement, using the program statement within the State of Ohio's public process to gain favor for the project, successfully obtaining federal, state and local funds to complete the project as well as sequencing that funding over eight years. Finally, the work presents the engineering systematic approach for designing, developing, bidding, construction and the location of the occupants into the facility on schedule, within the established budget and into high quality, state-of-the-art physical facilities.; It is this information presented in this way which will enable future buildings and major additions to buildings to be constructed efficiently, cost-effectively, and with the highest degree of functionality.