Industry News

centrotherm photovoltaics is constructing a thin-film R&D center in Blaubeuren, Germany. Slated for completion by year-end 2008, the project will include a thin-film laboratory with leading edge analysis tools and pilot fabrication for CIGS lines. The facility will employ 20 staff members. Construction on the facility began in January of 2008.

Marquette University is planning to construct the $100 million Discovery Learning Complex in Milwaukee. Housing the College of Engineering, the facility will be structured around 15 pods housing conjoined classrooms, faculty offices, and research labs in each grouping. The project will feature multidisciplinary labs for materials and structural testing, complex systems, mechatronics, visualization, neuromechanics, and biomedical imaging. A specialized energy workshop lab will focus on development of alternative energy resources.

The University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) will break ground in fall of 2008 on the 74,832-gsf Institute for Regeneration Medicine on its Parnassus campus. Designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects, the $128-million facility is supported by a $34.8 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Housing multidisciplinary stem cell research, the 46,283-asf project will be comprised of four split-level floors housing wet labs, support and offices.

Dartmouth University is constructing a $93-million life sciences building on its Hanover, N.H., campus. Named the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, the 174,000-sf sustainably designed facility broke ground in late fall of 2007 and is slated for completion in March of 2010. The complex will house 30 research labs, six teaching labs, three lecture halls, and two classrooms. Sustainable design features of the project include extensive use of natural light, storm water recycling, and a green roof over the auditorium.

Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL) dedicated its LEED-certified research facility in August of 2008 in Salisbury Cove, Maine. Doubling the footprint of MDIBL’s existing building, the 15,000-sf facility houses the Morris Center for the Environment and Human Health, the Boylan Center for Cellular and Molecular Physiology, the Marine DNA Sequencing and Analysis Facility, laboratory space for six research groups, and a teaching lab. The construction manager for the $7.1 million project was Nickerson and O’Day of Bangor.