Perkins&Will

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is planning to construct the $86 million Integrated Engineering Research Center in Batavia, Ill. Designed by Perkins+Will with Arup as consulting engineer, the collaborative 80,000-sf structure will collocate engineers, technicians, and scientists at the core of Fermi's campus. Supporting advanced programs in particle physics, the flexible facility will provide reconfigurable labs, offices, design studios, and testing suites.

York University is building the CAD$50.5 million School of Continuing Studies in Toronto. Acting as a gateway to the Keele Campus, the 97,000-sf building will collocate the school's programs in a single integrated facility offering 39 classrooms, breakout rooms, study spaces, student lounges, and faculty and staff offices.

Ohio University is constructing the $65 million Heritage Hall in Athens. Designed by Perkins+Will and DesignGroup, the three-story, 120,000-sf building will provide the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine (HCOM) with flexible environments for team-based learning to support the school's groundbreaking Pathways to Health and Wellness curriculum.

Washington University in St. Louis broke ground on a $616 million neuroscience research center in March of 2020. Designed by Perkins+Will and CannonDesign, the 609,000-sf building will accommodate over 100 research teams in collaborative neighborhoods to promote interaction. Strategically sited between the university's medical campus and the Cortex Innovation Community, the 11-story facility will house approximately 900 investigators from the departments of neurology, neuroscience, neurosurgery, psychiatry, and anesthesiology.

Maker spaces, active learning labs, and multidisciplinary collaboration spaces have become essential elements for educational engineering facilities nationwide, as academic institutions respond to the demands of modern industry. In addition to providing the robust infrastructure and fabrication tools engineering students need to develop practical skills, another important element of these space types is an emphasis on teamwork, entrepreneurship, and commercial viability. This means positioning maker and capstone project spaces in close proximity to meeting rooms, support spaces, and team collaboration zones. High-profile maker spaces also serve to help institutions increase industry partnership opportunities as well as student and faculty recruitment.