Latest Reports

Utilizing the “big room”—collocating all project team members onsite in a single environment—to achieve true integrated project delivery (IPD) can be the best way to drive efficiency, reduce waste, and improve project outcomes through a shared pain/shared gain contract structure for all stakeholders. But it also can create a lot of noise in the form of information overload. Only by managing information as a Lean commodity can the IPD team realize the full potential of the process.

The six-story, 296,500-sf University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston’s School of Dentistry includes dental clinics, simulation and pre-clinical labs, clinical support labs, a clinical research lab, classrooms, learning resource center, student center, and administrative space. The building is divided into three zones: patient and public areas on the lower floors, topped by student areas, then faculty and staff areas on the upper floors.

Emory University’s 200,000-sf Health Sciences Research Building (HSRB) provides both wet and dry labs and BSL-2 and BSL-3 containment to pursue research in drug discovery, immunology and vaccines, neurosciences, cancer, gastroenterology, transplant immunology, nephrology, biomedical engineering, and human genetics.

Bringing biosafety laboratories into compliance with the BMBL 5^th Edition’s “zero airflow reversal” clause requires assessing risk appropriately, analyzing the impact of a pressure envelope on the facility, installing appropriate ventilation and control systems, and implementing new control strategies for practical testing.

Lease arrangements for office and laboratory space have historically been mostly for smaller companies, but are now becoming increasingly popular as a way for large research institutions to find an entrée into or expand in congested and expensive urban centers quickly, cost-effectively, and with more flexibility than building new.