Alternative Work Styles
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Designing the Veterinary School of the Future
3-13-2019When Texas A&M created a new set of buildings for its veterinary school, it sought to provide spaces that would work for current methods of teaching sciences, but also flexibility to accommodate future change.
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The Seven Steps of Innovation—and the Space Types that Facilitate the Process
2-13-2019Innovation has become the lifeblood of corporate and institutional longevity. Whether a disruptive breakthrough or a line extension, more often than not it is the result of an idea that follows an obscure networked path before evolving into a viable new product or business model. Facilities have a huge impact on the pace and outcome of the innovation process. A variety of spaces, each tailored to foster a specific type of activity, is essential to the innovative workplace. “At the end of the day, innovation is all about providing the right spaces to enable people to use their creative brains in the best manner to come up with new ideas,” says John Campbell, president and lead workplace strategist at the architecture firm FCA. “The design must address the human behaviors that drive the process.”
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Managing Transformational Campus Renovation
1-23-2019University of Michigan transformed Weiser Hall—a 1960s brick tower with floor after floor of double-loaded, concrete block corridors—into a dynamic and flexible “center of centers” that brings together international and interdisciplinary institutes and centers so they can share space, services, and ideas. The provost’s charge was to renovate the building to create the “academic workplace of the future.” With the help of brightspot strategy and Diamond Schmitt architects, the team accomplished that mission with a seven-step formula that yielded impressive results, including an average overall productivity savings of 4.26 hours per person per week, the equivalent of every unit being able to grow its staff by 10 percent at no cost.
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Designing Space for Nomadic Workers
1-16-2019More and more, workers aren’t going to an office and sitting at the same desk Monday through Friday.
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EMD Serono's Project SagaMORE Named 2018 Green Building of the Year
1-9-2019EMD Serono’s Project SagaMORE has been named the 2018 Green Building of the Year by the Massachusetts chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council.
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Cargill Opens Protein Headquarters
12-17-2018Cargill opened its $70 million protein headquarters in Wichita in December of 2018.
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Creating Unique Research Facilities to Pursue the Newest Scientific Exploration
12-12-2018Most A&E teams will never have to plan the descent of a highly sensitive, one-of-a-kind particle accelerator a mile down a wet, dark, crooked shaft to an astrophysics research facility built in a decommissioned gold mine. Or collaborate on a strategy to acquire and store the equivalent of 20 percent of a year’s production of xenon gas without making a massive one-time purchase that could trigger a drastic spike in market prices. Or order equipment from around the globe that has to be transported by ship, rail, or truck because of the exposure to radiation in flight. The professionals who faced these challenges will probably not encounter them again on future projects. However, as scientific discovery continues to push the frontiers of the unknown, the need to create unique research environments is likely to become more frequent.
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University of Melbourne Begins Construction on Innovation Precinct
11-15-2018The University of Melbourne began construction in October of 2018 on Melbourne Connect, a AUD$425 million innovation precinct.
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Uptown Consortium Plans CoMade Innovation Hub
11-5-2018Uptown Consortium is planning to build the $26 million CoMade innovation hub in Cincinnati.
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Academic Medicine Adopts the “Workplace of the Future”
7-11-2018Anyone who has ever set foot in a hospital knows the scene: doctors, nurses, residents, and interns huddling in the hallway discussing a patient’s care. For any number of reasons, that is not the best way to confer, but traditional academic medical centers offer few alternatives. The situation is exacerbated by the increase in adjunct faculty who lack even scattered departmental resources like office space. At the same time, millennials are entering academic medicine with even higher expectations—of greater collaboration, pervasive technology, and continuous connectivity.
