Latest Reports

The economy started out the first quarter of 2016 in good shape, as energy and commodity prices stabilized at reduced levels. This led to more construction activity nationwide, with average prices coming in at an annual escalation rate of around 6 percent, depending on location. Construction job growth and dollar volume both continued upward trends as non-residential construction spending rebounded 48 percent from its most recent bottom in 2011. On balance, current indicators support stable construction growth over the short-term.

One might not typically associate North Dakota with the future of medical professional education and with fair reason: It is one of the least populated states in America to be home to a full medical school. But that perception may soon change, thanks to the University of North Dakota’s new School of Medicine and Health Sciences facility, opening this summer, which aims to move from aging, closed, and fixed learning spaces to open and adaptive, technology-integrated, interdisciplinary spaces.

After successfully launching FLEXplace—a dynamic initiative to increase employee well-being and business productivity—Johnson & Johnson further refined its activity-based planning approach and rebranded it as the “Workplace Innovation Program.” The revised program further establishes design and operating guidelines for creating collaborative and personal work environments for a wide variety of business functions in different locations and cultures around the world.

The 80,000-sf, three-story New Jersey Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health (IFNH), on the George H. Cook Campus of Rutgers University, is dedicated to promoting a healthy lifestyle statewide, and serves as a national model of interdisciplinary research and public health practice, with research laboratories and core facilities, laboratory support, a preschool, office space, team rooms, and a food service area.

An increased focus on creating active, engaging, and collaborative learning environments for STEM disciplines is changing the way these spaces are planned and designed, while demands for sustainability and space and energy efficiencies continue to exert an influence. The expansion of the traditional science, technology, engineering, and mathematics acronym to include art (STEAM); science, math, and art (SMArt); or nursing (SMArt Nursing) is driving new classroom and laboratory configurations and more inviting, open designs, where learning is on full display.