Latest Reports

At Duke University, a new 7,600-sf maker space is generating substantial excitement among students and faculty alike. An older building, Gross Hall, was completely renovated. Prior to the renovation, the basement level housed air handlers and other outdated utility equipment; with its expansive floorplate and 35-foot ceiling freed up, the design team was able, over the course of a year, to create a comprehensive, co-curricular space for projects of all kinds.

The new Vicki Sara Building on the urban campus of the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, includes a massive “Super Lab”—a single open floor plate of more than 8,600 sf that serves 220 students in any configuration up to a maximum of 12 separate classes simultaneously. From 2,500 to 3,000 students, over several sessions a day, pass through the lab each week. Powered by IT integration, the Sydney facility serves students studying chemistry, biology, cell biology/biochemistry, physics, physiology, and pharmacy compounding.

Other building features include:

Signing the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment pledge is one thing, but complying with it is quite another. At the University of Pennsylvania, compliance meant renovating the HVAC systems in a 140,000-gsf chemistry research and teaching facility built in 1973. Converting the building’s constant-volume ventilation system, which provided 22 air changes per hour (ACH) 24 hours a day, to a variable-volume system providing 4 to 12 ACH would yield massive energy savings. The catch? Doing it without kicking anyone out.

At the inception of a new interdisciplinary science building, bricks-and-mortar considerations must take a back seat to a big-picture view of issues related to organization, funding, governance, and the long-range vision of the institution. The resolution of these issues early on leads to projects that are more successful—not necessarily in terms of cost savings, but in the essential criterion of aligning a new facility with specific academic strengths and the broader institutional mission.

SUNY Buffalo State has completed the second phase of a three-phase project that will transform its science education facilities by consolidating multiple science departments into a single facility, establishing a hub for the STEM curriculum. Originally built in 1962, the 171,000-sf Science Building No. 15 undertook a $107 million expansion project to create a science complex that is one of the few interdisciplinary facilities in the SUNY system.