WESTWOOD, CA – UCLA’s Fall Quarter begins on Thursday, but a rush of new and returning students have already arrived, greeted by the familiar and the new – including a gleaming new engineering building which now anchors UCLA’s esteemed Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science (HSSEAS).

UCLA Engineering VI is a two-part new construction project located in the heart campus, designed to accelerate the highly-regarded engineering school’s “ever-increasing leadership role in developing technological solutions to the world’s environmental challenges,” according to university officials.

The 60,000 square-foot North Wing, or “Phase I” is complete and ready to receive arriving students and faculty. The building’s second and final construction phase, a 90,000 square-foot facility that will ultimately connect to the North Wing, broke ground in March and is expected to be completed in 2017.

The new, state-of-the-art engineering complex will house labs for research into renewable energy sources, next-generation semiconductors, nanotechnology, and new materials for healthcare and other applications, as well as the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences, and a technology-enabled 250-seat learning center. It will be home to the UCLA computer science department and the engineering school’s start-up incubator, the Institute for Technology Advancement.

UCLA Engineering VI was designed with advanced water- and energy-efficiency systems, and the school is seeking LEED Gold or LEED Platinum certification. As part of the overall effort, Xcel Mechanical Systems was hired to implement an end-to-end HVAC solution for the new building.

“This was a very important project for all stakeholders,” said Xcel Mechanical Project Manager Juan Zelda. “We understand how the client intends to use this building, and how fundamentally critical it is that all systems work to their precise designed intent.

Xcel Mechanical Systems has many years’ experience implementing cost-effective mechanical solutions at major research universities, colleges and K-12 campuses across Southern California. Xcel Mechanical teams have worked in new and existing campus buildings, classrooms, research facilities, arts & entertainment centers, and marquee athletic complexes.

“This is a highly technical, highly sensitive environment.” Zelda said. “We were up to the challenge, excited throughout the project, and proud of what are delivering to the client,” Zelda said.

The $130 million building is being funded by prominent donors, HSSEAS, the university – and also a $6 million grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, according to the school’s website.

Richard Cavanagh, director of the special programs office for NIST, emphasized in the story the importance of far-reaching research into renewable forms of energy and methods of reducing energy consumption.

Cavanagh said the Western Institute of Nanotechnology on Green Engineering and Metrology, a research center that will be housed in Engineering VI, is “a near and dear partner to what we want to see happen in this country.”

For more information about the project, please see: http://issuu.com/uclaengineering/docs/magazine_spring_2015_fa4

About the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
The UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, established in 1945, consistently ranks among the top 10 engineering schools in public universities. In the last decade, the school’s teaching and research enterprise has grown and expanded greatly with a 30 percent net increase in the number of full-time faculty and a 70 percent increase in the undergraduate and graduate student population. Most significantly the research revenue of the school has grown more than 100 percent from approximately $50 million in 1997 to $110 million in 2011. For more information, please visit: http://engineering.ucla.edu/

About Xcel Mechanical Systems, Inc.
Xcel Mechanical Systems designs, builds and services commercial and industrial HVAC, Plumbing and Process Piping systems for clients across the Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. Our cost-effective solutions make buildings more comfortable, energy efficient, and easier to manage. Our resume includes large-scale implementations across the Aerospace, Commercial, Data Center, Education, Entertainment, Government, and Healthcare sectors. For more information, please visit: https://www.xcelmech.com/