Latest Reports

Biogen Idec is exchanging the tired academic layout of a 20-year-old lab facility for an open and modular configuration that combines innovative “I” and “we” spaces to stimulate not only efficient space utilization, but also competitiveness and an alignment with the company’s scientific goals in a dynamic industry that requires the utmost flexibility in its researchers and their lab spaces.

Clemson University’s three-story, 100,000-gsf Life Science Building contains 25 research laboratories, three teaching laboratories, a state-of-the-art Leica Microsystems imaging suite, and a range of high-tech support space. A key component of the University’s College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences (CAFLS), the building is designed for interdisciplinary and collaborative faculty research and teaching focused on emerging pathogens, cancer cures and prevention, microbiology, and food safety.

Offsite prefabrication of building modules can potentially transform the construction process in the United States, according to two engineers who have implemented the technique on multiple project sites. The experience of Ed Szwarc and Dean Poillucci of Skanska USA Building, Inc., indicates that assembly of such units at offsite construction facilities (OSCFs) radically compresses schedules and improves safety while also providing cost savings.

The new teaching facility for the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University contains all of the components for the first two years of medical school, creating a “home” for the Medical School on a completely new urban campus and supporting an increase in class size from 100 to 120 students. Medical School admissions applications increased from 2,825 in 2010 (when construction commenced) to 4,725 in 2012 (post-occupancy), an increase of 67 percent, and there are 70 applicants for every position. Annual fundraising for medical programs increased 15 percent from 2011 to 2012.

The National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), on Boston University’s Medical Campus, is maximizing secure wireless networks and private cloud computing to improve safety, operational efficiency, and energy consumption. The seven-story building—which contains BSL-2, BSL-3, and BSL-4 facilities—features a dedicated data center, virtualized servers, extensive use of thin clients, and a secure wireless network providing voice-over-IP (VoIP) communications that cover more than 90 percent of the interior.