Laboratory

The University of Nevada, Reno is constructing a $75 million facility to expand capacity for the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory (a branch of the School of Public Health). Designed by Van Woert Bigotti, the 55,000-sf building will offer flexible laboratories, dedicated research and screening environments, and specialized containment areas including a BSL-3 lab. A new toxicology program will focus on substance abuse issues. Sophisticated conference rooms will be accompanied by collaboration spaces and staff offices. 

The University of Texas at Tyler opened a $308 million facility for the School of Medicine in April of 2026. The nearly 250,000-sf building will strengthen health infrastructure and address national and regional provider shortages by creating a robust talent pipeline and expanding residency programs.

Louisiana State University (LSU) opened the Our Lady of the Lake Health Interdisciplinary Science Building in April of 2026 in Baton Rouge. Serving as a vibrant nexus for scientific inquiry, STEM education, and industry collaboration, the new home of the College of Science drives innovation in the five key focus areas of geology and geophysics, chemistry, biological sciences, mathematics, and astronomy and physics.

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), which ranks 11th in the nation in research expenditures, the question of how to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into research facilities is no longer theoretical—it is urgent. The institution operates a vast and diverse research enterprise across multiple buildings. That scale, combined with rapid shifts in federal science policy, has prompted a fundamental reassessment of how research infrastructure is designed, operated, and managed.

The landscape of academic research has shifted dramatically over the past three decades. Where scientists once worked within single disciplines, today’s researchers tackle complex societal challenges demanding collaboration across multiple fields, and the development of partnerships with private industries addressing the same issues. This evolution has fundamentally changed the approach to research facility design, requiring unique considerations for buildings whose users may not yet be identified and whose research hasn’t been imagined. As a result, the design process has become more cyclical, with fewer known variables upfront, requiring uncertainty management while still delivering buildings that will serve institutions for decades to come.

Collecting and analyzing data is par for the course in facilities planning and operations. But how is that data used, for how long, and how often is it updated? Poorly curated data can be barely more useful than no data at all. But many institutions don’t know where to start or how to make the best use of data they already have. Mining and strategically analyzing information can provide data-driven insights into space needs to help increase utilization, create space planning programs, and understand carbon footprints. 

The Arkansas Department of Public Safety (DPS) is constructing a $200 million replacement facility for the state crime laboratory in North Little Rock. Driving scientific innovation and expanding capacity for the justice system, the 190,000-sf building will support advanced forensic disciplines including DNA analysis, toxicology, digital forensics, firearms examination, and other critical services.

Every new building is a gamble on the future, but some are bigger bets than others. These days, one of the highest-stakes wagers campus planners must make is how much to upgrade their high-performance facilities to meet tomorrow’s demand. It isn’t an easy call. Once relegated to distant basements, computer labs are now being built right in the heart of campus, a reflection of their ever-growing importance. With the number of majors that utilize high-performance computing expected to rise nationally by the end of the decade and the growing importance of cutting-edge supercomputers in recruiting the very best scholars, the overall direction is clear. But a lot can go wrong, which makes planning tomorrow’s high- performance computing facilities today very complicated and potentially risky.

From cortisone to CAT scans, the future of medicine has often arrived first at the Mayo Clinic. The tradition continues today with the fit-up of a new headquarters for regenerative biotherapeutics adjacent to the research center’s Rochester, Minn., campus. The fourth floor of the recently built Discovery Square building, Two Discovery Square, had been earmarked originally for office space, but after COVID hit, the developer offered the opportunity to convert some of the office space to laboratory space. Mayo Clinic had been planning to build a Center for Regenerative Biotherapeutics and saw an opportunity to lease the 18,000-sf space at Discovery Square and convert it for this cutting-edge biomanufacturing facility.  

Dallas County Health and Human Services opened its new Public Health Laboratory in March of 2026. Strategically sited in the Southwestern Medical District, the $52 million facility offers state-of-the-art environments for the detection and mitigation of infectious agents and toxins. The 67,000-sf building centralizes lab services previously dispersed in several locations while significantly increasing capacity for testing, disease surveillance, and emergency response.

The 1,235-acre University of Maryland (UMD) campus in College Park sits just eight miles from the nation’s capital. Founded in 1856 as a land-grant institution, the university offers 300 degree programs through 12 colleges serving 41,000 students and—together with the University of Maryland, Baltimore—has $1.4 billion in sponsored research expenditures. Over the past decade, the school has experienced many shifts, including joining the Big Ten Conference and receiving its largest donation in university history.

In a higher education landscape facing shifting enrollment trends, rising costs, and an uncertain future, institutions must rethink how they use their physical spaces—not just as real estate, but as engines of purpose. And rather than traditional return on investment (ROI), they should employ “Return on Mission” to evaluate their success rather than metrics like net-to-gross ratios, utilization rates, and physical occupancy to assess their spaces. Relying solely on ROI falls short of capturing what truly matters: the activity inside the space and the value it generates.

The ideal lab building can flex over time to accommodate each new generation of researchers, with minimal disruption and infrastructure change. Using an approach called the “resilient chassis,” labs are grouped by typologies and placed around a common spine or “chassis” of mechanical/electrical/plumbing (MEP) systems based on zoning and capacity needs. The best location for each lab is determined by grouping labs together that share specialized requirements, such as vibration sensitivities, noise restrictions, lighting or electrical requirements, and instrumentation needs. 

Faced with growing demand to do more with less, animal laboratory managers are looking for opportunities to drive greater efficiencies. One way forward is the use of digitalization to improve energy efficiency as well as asset and space utilization. But tight budgets, the need to improve data collection and analysis, and insufficient numbers of staff trained to operate the new systems are all holding back adoption, according to experts at Siemens Smart Infrastructure. 

When it was proposed in 2019, repurposing underutilized space at the University of Georgia for an industry partner’s fermentation lab appeared to be a good deal for everyone involved. It was a win for the pharmaceutical company that wanted to contract with the university to help it develop new products and needed a fermentation lab that met, at a minimum, biosafety level 2 (BSL-2) standards. It was a plus for staff at the university’s Bioexpression and Fermentation Facility who would perform the work. It represented an advance for the university that wanted to form new industry relationships and had available space at its Athens, Ga. campus inside the Animal Health Research Center (AHRC). And it was a win for the AHRC, a 75,000-sf biocontainment facility that would host a new industry partner in addition to other laboratories performing BSL-2, animal biosafety level 2 (ABSL-2), biosafety level 3 (BSL-3), animal biosafety level 3 (ABSL-3), and animal biosafety level 3-agricultural (ABSL-3Ag) research work.