On Sept. 12, crews successfully rotated a 64-ft-dia turntable, complete with its unique cable management system, for the world's first revolving rent-a-lab for full-scale green-building-systems performance tests. The 40%-completed lazy-Susan building, which tracks the sun from the southeast to northeast by rotating 270˚, is the trickiest part of FLEXLAB, a $15.7-million research complex at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, sited 100 yards from the Hayward fault in earthquake-prone Berkeley, Calif.
The 1,610-sq-ft turntable test bed is "undefined territory," says Steve Blankinship, project manager for FLEXLAB's general contractor, C. Overaa & Co. "It is an experiment within an experiment."