Energy Use Reduction

Virginia Tech is planning to break ground in spring of 2024 on a $292 million engineering building located in the North Academic District in Blacksburg. Replacing an existing structure, Mitchell Hall will act as a centralized hub for several departments including mechanical, chemical, aerospace, and ocean engineering. The five-story, 285,500-gsf development was designed by Perkins&Will to foster experiential learning with student collaboration spaces on every level.

Ground was officially broken in July of 2023 on the Atlantic Science Enterprise Centre (ASEC) in Moncton, New Brunswick. Designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects in association with EXP, the CAD$350 million project will transform the existing Gulf Fisheries Centre into a four-story complex equipped with modern laboratories and technologies.

Pennsylvania State University is constructing the $128 million Susan Welch Liberal Arts Building on the University Park campus. Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the 143,000-sf facility will collocate the departments of anthropology, political science, and sociology and criminology, as well as housing the School of Public Policy, the School of International Affairs, and the Population Research Institute. The first floor will feature undergraduate instructional spaces, collaboration venues, and areas for group and individual study.

Canary Wharf Group and Kadans will break ground in fall of 2023 on One North Quay, a £500 million life sciences center in London. Designed by KPF, the 823,000-sf tower will provide world-class lab and office environments for biomedical and pharmaceutical companies. Constructed to the highest technological standards, the 23-story vertical campus will leverage advanced infrastructure to accommodate the stringent demands of wet-bench chemistry and high-containment research programs.

Vancouver Community College is planning to construct the CAD$291.3 million Centre for Clean Energy and Automotive Innovation on its Broadway campus in Vancouver, British Columbia. Designed by Stantec, the 343,832-sf facility will empower students to participate in the clean energy economy with technology-rich teaching labs, flexible classrooms, and specialized venues for collaborative education.

Caltech has begun site work for the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Center for Quantum Precision Measurement in Pasadena, Calif. Designed by HOK, the four-story, 116,451-sf facility will support interdisciplinary research programs in quantum sensing, quantum information, and gravitational-wave detection. Open interaction zones and collaboration spaces will promote dynamic knowledge exchange and discovery, complemented by a range of office settings and meeting rooms.

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston broke ground in June of 2023 on a $299 million facility for the School of Public Health. Located in the Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park, the 350,000-sf tower will provide leading-edge research labs, collaboration spaces, and classrooms for programs in epidemiology, genetics, nutrition, health policy, data science, and health promotion. Featuring an expansive auditorium, the 10-story building will integrate advanced distance-learning technologies to enable both in-person and remote instruction.

Purdue University is planning to construct the $160 million Nursing and Pharmacy Education Building in West Lafayette, Ind. Fostering interprofessional collaboration and discovery, the 186,000-sf facility will strategically collocate the College of Health and Human Services with the College of Pharmacy. The four-story structure will mirror modern healthcare settings with clinical simulation labs, a pharmacy practice lab, and a nuclear pharmacy lab.

Sterling Bay broke ground in May of 2023 on Pacific Center, a $650 million life sciences campus in the Sorrento Mesa area of San Diego. Designed by Gensler, the initial $265 million phase of construction will create two fully equipped research buildings linked by a central plaza. The all-electric structures will offer a total of 500,000 sf of lab, office, and conference space for biomedical and pharmaceutical tenants.

The National Institutes of Health broke ground in May of 2023 on a $630 million addition to the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda. Designed by HOK, the Surgery, Radiology, and Laboratory Medicine Wing will enable the discovery of innovative diagnostics, therapies, and cures for a wide range of diseases and conditions.

The Ohio State University opened the $237.5 million Pelotonia Research Center in May of 2023 in Columbus. Collocating research programs in life sciences, engineering, data sciences, and environmental health, the 305,000-sf building will accelerate the creation of novel solutions for complex scientific problems. Pelli Clarke & Partners and Moody Nolan designed the five-story structure with integrated laboratory neighborhoods to foster collaboration and discovery.

How do you measure the value of research? That’s the question many universities are contending with as they rethink and revise their master plans to reflect declining enrollments, a complex funding environment, and the realities of older facilities, amid competition for scarce resources. A fresh approach to space planning and benchmarking can help clarify the possibilities.

The U.S. Department of Energy opened the $19.5 million Research and Innovation Laboratory (RAIL) in May of 2023 in Golden, Colo. Located at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the 15,700-sf facility features 5,500 sf of cross-disciplinary collaboration space for the development of pioneering energy solutions and technologies. Catalyzing innovation at the intersection of chemistry, materials science, bioscience, and engineering, RAIL offers additional wet lab capacity, which is in high demand on NREL’s South Table Mountain campus.

Matrix Innovation Center opened the Matrix ONE lab and office building in May of 2023 in the Amsterdam Science Park. Designed by MVRDV, the 140,000-sf structure provides flexible labs and offices, a 100-seat auditorium, and a range of settings for informal interaction. As well as offering leasable space for private companies, Matrix ONE houses SustainaLab, a research hub for the creation of climate change solutions.

“Smart labs” and the Internet of Things—with sensors and actuators that gather information about the lab environment and adjust its systems according to that data—have been around for a while. But a new wave of construction is allowing designers to incorporate smart concepts from the ground up, providing sensitive and responsive ventilation and airflow systems to a newly COVID-sensitized lab marketplace. Architects and engineers are working together to create flexible systems that respond in real time to conditions inside a research lab. “In a nutshell, we would like a smart building to operate in correlation with its occupancy and utilization,” says Tom Smith, president and CEO of 3Flow.