Workplace Safety Drives Regulations
Pharmaceutical companies, scientific researchers, and manufacturers of common household products use, store, and dispose of hazardous, even deadly, materials on a daily basis. Therefore, it is important that they follow the many codes regulating these materials and ensure that their facilities are designed to maintain a safe work environment. Often, facility owners do not know what chemicals they have on site, says Greg Burrows, principal of BHDP Architecture located in both Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, which specializes in the design of high-tech research facilities.

Hazardous Material Management Plan Involves Architects, Owners, and Code Officials
It isn't enough to simply know what chemicals you have, or even to safeguard those chemicals inside a properly designed building. It also is critical to document and inventory those chemicals in a Hazardous Material Management Plan, an eight-page form included in NFPA 1, Annex D.

Safe Functional Design of Multi-Purpose Imaging Suites
Pfizer Inc.'s new bioimaging center, developed in collaboration with Madison, Wis.-based Flad & Associates, combines a powerful array of sophisticated imaging equipment—including MRI, CT, and PET technology—into a compact 4,500-sf vivarium research facility. Design of the imaging center involved overcoming a significant number of complex logistical challenges including integration of high magnetic fields, radiation, vibration-sensitive equipment, and strict vivarium protocols.

The 460,000-gsf Complex Will Support Cross-cutting Science Disciplines
For a snapshot of the changing face of academic science, look no further than the series of buildings going up on the campus of the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. Slated for final completion in 2010, the multi-phase, 460,000-sf Carolina Physical Science Complex (CPSC) will provide the infrastructure to support the latest directions in scientific research, whether nanomedicine or astrophysics.

Practical Measures for Maximizing Nanoscience Facility Design
Nanoscience facilities are rapidly becoming essential for cutting-edge research in a wide range of scientific fields, but achieving the necessary environmental control for nano-scale work can significantly increase capital outlay. Analysts at Boston-based Wilson Architects recently compared the design and program features of a variety of academic nanoscience facilities in the interest of identifying the factors that had the most impact on facility performance and cost. The team compared projects involving new construction, renovations, and space fit-ups, and created a decision-making matrix for maximizing nano-facility performance with less capital expense.

Sophisticated Equipment, Advancing Technology Impact 21st-Century Labs
The current decade proves that, just as science itself evolves, science laboratories must adapt, expand, and transform to accommodate the experiments and instrumentation that is required to do that science.

Retrofitting R&D Space to Accommodate Rapidly Changing Research
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a UK-based pharmaceutical and healthcare leader, has begun rolling out its FlexiLab facility design at research labs in the U.S. with the help of North Carolina-based Affiliated Engineers Inc. (AEI). The innovative design combines large open floor plans with moveable furniture and modular services to create highly flexible research space that can be easily customized by the end-user. Originally pioneered at R&D facilities in the UK, FlexiLab is proven to reduce construction and maintenance costs, and make laboratory reconfiguration easier, faster, and cheaper.

Organizations Increase Awareness about Need for Worldwide Certification Criterion
Motivated by a vision to safeguard life, property, and the environment from biological risks, the world's top biosafety organizations are collaborating to assist in the development of a uniform standard for certifying biocontainment laboratories and the people who work in them.

Beneficial Drugs in Their Pure Form Can Be as Deadly as Biological Pathogens
As drugs become more refined and potent, it is becoming more critical for pharmaceutical researchers to invest in the same kind of contained laboratories that researchers of deadly diseases have used for years.

Emory University
The original Candler Library was designed by Edward L. Tilton in 1924 and anchors one end of the main quadrangle of the Emory University campus. The building?with its grand two-story reading room and adjacent sky-lit lobby and ornamental main stair hall?occupies a place of physical and symbolic importance on the historic campus.

Montclair State University
Designed in the University's distinctive Spanish Mission-style architecture, University Hall is the largest and most sophisticated building in Montclair State University's history. This 272,000-sf technologically advanced facility will become the new icon for learning and teaching excellence in the 21st century.

Providence College
The Smith Center for the Arts serves as the premier teaching and performance facility for the growing number of undergraduates enrolled in the performing arts disciplines, as well as those participating in extracurricular activities involving music, theatre, and dance.

University of Notre Dame
The Chemistry Research Center is an addition to the Stepan Chemistry Hall on the University of Notre Dame campus. The addition ties into the existing floor elevations, which include four occupied floors and a mechanical penthouse. The building houses NMR labs designed to accommodate multiple magnets up to 800 MHz at the first floor, chemistry labs at the third and fourth floors, and faculty offices.

Southern Connecticut State University
The five-story, 120,276-gsf residence hall houses students and staff members in a variety of room configurations. Each "living suite" includes four single bedrooms, a common living room, two bathrooms, and storage closets. Additional program space includes resident life offices, community laundering facilities, computer technology rooms, common and study lounges, and vending machine areas.