Facilities Promote Five Key Teaching Attributes Sought by Institutions
Today more than ever, the design of a college or university science building can be a key factor in students' success, one just as important as the quality of the faculty and curriculum offerings. University officials are working to design spaces that address five key attributes important to science education: hands-on learning, collaboration, interaction, visibility, and adaptability.

Core Labs and Flexible Floor Plans Drive Innovation
Increased focus on interdisciplinary research is driving new approaches to facility design. Core labs, space flexibility, and non-laboratory interaction zones have become significant components of emerging design models. Case studies at Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as a "work-in-progress" facility, demonstrate how a strategic emphasis on core lab elements, open floor flexibility, and casual interaction zones can impact innovation.

New Measures Will Influence Facility Plans
Time is highly valued by scientists. Cost matters to facilities managers. Productivity is critical to research administrators. Productivity, with its myriad of contributing variables, is notoriously difficult to measure, and the time of researchers is seldom considered by managers and administrators. As if by default, cost becomes the only measure available. In this milieu, less space is better, as is more shared equipment.

In 2004, an interdisciplinary team of design professionals, sociologists, and a retired entomologist embarked on a series of three projects evaluating the scientific/engineering environment from an analytical, not qualitative, standpoint.

Mission Complexity Scoring Yields Staffing Level Guide
When it comes to "lean management" and the facilities management (FM) function, the question "What level of facilities management staffing is required to support the corporate mission?" is a very good one to ask. It opens a line of inquiry that directly addresses the single most important--and most easily controlled--cost factor, namely "heads," and it aligns the FM vocabulary and thinking directly with that of C-level executives, for whom headcount is one of the chief control variables in managing corporate mission performance.

French Family Science Center Becomes 17th LEED-Certified Building on Campus
What began as a replacement for an aging chemistry building at Duke University seven years ago has become a world-class example of how to design a science facility that is both multidisciplinary and sustainable. The $115-million French Family Science Center, completed in late 2006, is the result of the University's vision to expand its undergraduate research and teaching capabilities.

Better Design Engages Students in Hands-On Learning
The James I. Swenson Science Building (SSB) at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, (UMD) demonstrates that physical environment can be as important as curriculum in achieving educational goals. By designing a science building to support curricular goals and engage students and instructors, the departments of chemistry and biology have solved a host of the educational shortcomings that impeded learning in their former buildings.