An aggressive workplace transformation to an open floorplate with no private offices, implemented across 1 million-plus sf in three locations, allowed Unum Group to consolidate about 40 percent of its worldwide real estate portfolio, turning the vacated space into $53 million in sub-leasing revenue over the next 10 years. Despite the consolidation, the refurbished office buildings are equipped with a raft of appealing amenities, from coffee bars, micromarkets, and cafeterias to fitness centers, quiet rooms, and gaming areas.

The newly renovated Robert A. Welch Hall lays the groundwork to transform the way science is taught and done at the University of Texas, Austin, to move from siloed departments to transdisciplinary research that focuses on emerging fields that occur at the interfaces of traditional core science departments. While the sciences had been almost entirely housed in separate single-department buildings, the College of Natural Science’s master plan calls for more program-based facilities. The renovation infuses the building with light and increases its research capacity by 30 percent.

The new Community Commons at the University of Denver (DU), one of three major new buildings that opened at the school’s campus this fall, serves as the centerpiece of a student-oriented campus neighborhood that also includes a new residence hall and career center. The Commons is designed to provide students the knowledge, resources, and relationships they need to navigate their college experience, with gathering spaces, support services, and centralized dining options. It was designed in direct response to the goals established in the university’s strategic plan to center, elevate, and enrich the student experience.

Boston College (BC) is putting the finishing touches on its new 157,000-sf Integrated Science Building, which will house the college’s new Human Centered Engineering program, as well as the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, the Computer Science Department, and the Edmund H. Shea Jr. Center for Entrepreneurship. Together, they will advance the college’s mission to pursue the sciences through a liberal arts lens, focusing on solving complex societal problems in energy, environment, and health. The facility, which will house 22 faculty, represents the largest single investment in the sciences in BC’s history.

The University of Kansas (KU) faced a daunting challenge: more than 11 million sf of facilities in 150 buildings whose average age was 45 years and a deferred maintenance backlog exceeding $350 million. At the same time, the university’s strategic plan set a goal of increasing research and discovery, and the resulting campus master plan prioritized the need for new research facilities. Realizing that goal while addressing the existing challenges could have taken decades using traditional funding models. The solution? The Integrated Science Building, KU’s $180 million large-scale public-private partnership (P3) for interdisciplinary campus development, which is breaking new ground in funding models, integration, management structure, and fundraising activities. With this initiative, the university took a “great leap forward” in academic and research programs, design decisions, space allocations, programming, and critical infrastructure upgrades, as well as making a bold step with the project delivery.