Online Meeting

In both the public and private sector, the pendulum has swung away from remote work, and many leaders want their employees to come back to the office more days per week. While good workplace design can help make workplaces commute-worthy, the success of any return-to-office strategy depends on a mix of operational protocols and design decisions, says Kay Sargent, director of thought leadership, interiors, at global design, architecture, engineering and planning firm HOK.

The idea of a workplace means something very different today than it did five years ago. Even before the pandemic, offices were not at full capacity. While occupancy rates have rebounded from their low point in 2020, commercial building spaces are now being used only about 30% of the time. That reality creates an opportunity to rethink what the remaining office space looks like. Employees want a reason to leave the comfort of their homes and endure the commute to the office. They are looking for purposeful presence.

The new Library and Learning Center at the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP) has transformed the school’s former library from a quiet place filled primarily with stacks of books into a welcoming and dynamic environment focused on providing students access to the resources needed to succeed academically. In addition to the library, the renovated facility includes the learning lab, which brings together tutoring support previously housed in three different locations, a student academic computing center, nine group study rooms, two academic classrooms, and a One-Button studio for video production. The number of computers available for student use throughout the entire facility has increased from 30 to 300, an important advantage for the many CCP students who do not own personal computers.   

The sudden pivot to virtual learning during the COVID pandemic has changed higher education for the foreseeable future. Interviews with more than 250 students, professors, and space planners at more than 100 campuses around the world reveal that 18- to 24-year-old students missed being on campus and are glad to be back. But they have changed; the institutions have changed; and campuses don’t quite fit anyone’s needs anymore. Learn the 10 insights from these interviews that can help shape the future of your campus design.

The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) broke ground in May of 2024 on the 68,000-sf, $109.7 million Princeton Plasma Innovation Center (PPIC), a laboratory and office facility designed by SmithGroup and dedicated to research in the fields of microelectronics, quantum sensors and devices, and sustainability sciences, with a focus on achieving fusion energy by 2040. 

University Health Network of Toronto, Canada’s largest research healthcare system, increased space efficiency and improved employee morale by reengineering its practices and workspaces to accommodate a hybrid work model. Of the 6 million sf occupied by the network, 1 million sf was office space, 200,000 sf of which was used by people who could be hybrid workers. The transition required a concentrated change management strategy, an investment in technology, and a reconfiguration of space and the way it was managed.

e4H Architecture is offering a webinar on August 21, 2020 at 12:00 PM EST. "Leveraging Sustainable Design at the Center of Excellence for Autism and Developmental Disorders" will explore this transformative 28,000-sf facility in South Portland, Maine.  

Pivotal is partnering with Optum and Array Analytics to offer a live webinar at 12:00 PM (EDT) on July 29, 2020. "It's Time to Be Agile: Planning for the Future of Healthcare" will explore the integration of healthcare strategic planning with asset management and facilities planning. The session will detail ways that data can be leveraged through technology to enable health systems to quickly adapt to market transformations.

Topics will include:

FM:Systems is offering a webcast that will enable facilities managers to connect data with effective decision making to drive strategic organizational change in response to SARS-CoV-2. "Understanding COVID's Impact on Your Organization's Space Utilization & Metrics" will air at 11:30 AM EST on June 10, 2020.

Siemens is offering a three-part webinar series: "Winning Projects Requiring Complex Building Technologies." Join David Weaver, Director of Smart Infrastructure at Siemens, for one, two, or all three half-hour sessions to learn how you can meet your clients' expectations and win new projects that require ever more complex and far-reaching technologies. Leveraging these innovative solutions can create the ideal user experience and enhance your reputation as a smart building contractor. Registration includes access to all three events. 

Allentown, an industry leader in research animal housing solutions, is offering a webinar on May 20, 2020. "Benefits of Biocontainment" will address the global challenges facing the animal housing industry and the ways in which biocontainment protocols can help address some of these issues when employed in the Allentown BCU-2 IVC and Cage system.

The webinar will be aired in two sessions at 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM EDT. 

To register, visit Allentown, Inc.
 

Hixson is offering a free webinar at 2:00 PM EDT on May 14, 2020. "Optimizing Your Lab Facility: Removing Roadblocks to Success" will enable facilities planning and management professionals to learn how to identify barriers to R&D lab performance; discover design and engineering solutions that can reduce or eliminate lab constraints; and develop a winning business case to make strategic capital investments for facility improvements.

Many existing lab spaces are filled with roadblocks that cause them to be less than ideal: 

E4H Architecture presented a webinar on modular facilities for accelerating vaccine development on May 8, 2020. Now available as an on-demand recording, the exciting session is led by Jeff Schantz, Director of Health Sciences and Technology at E4H. Jeff reviews planning strategies for adapting multi-therapeutic cGMP/BSL-3 cleanroom modules for SARS-CoV-2 response and cell therapy development. Presentation topics include regulatory guidelines, HVAC requirements, design and flow considerations, and decontamination strategies.

Tecniplast is offering a webinar on the use of the DVC® System to optimize animal modelling in mouse vivaria. “Improving Animal Modelling with 24/7 Home Cage Monitoring in Bio-exclusion/Biocontainment Mouse Housing Systems” will detail how the DVC® technology applied to the ISO caging system can deliver improved data replicability, animal welfare, and research results. 

Merrick & Company are offering a free webinar on strategies for returning to work during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The one-hour session will begin at 1:00 PM EDT on May 7, 2020.