Collaboration

The University of Glasgow broke ground in October of 2024 on a dynamic new center for teaching and research on its Gilmorehill campus. Designed by HOK, the Keystone Building will offer instructional settings and technical environments for over 3,600 students of all disciplines. The £300 million structure will feature advanced computational laboratories and a range of wet and dry lab spaces. Providing general teaching facilities for the James Watt School of Engineering, the development will also include a maker space, collaborative areas, and a café.

MilliporeSigma, a subsidiary of Merck KGaA, opened a $317.2 million facility in Rockville in October of 2024. Located in the Alexandria Center at Traville Gateway, the 260,000-sf building provides advanced laboratories for biosafety testing, analytical development, viral clearance, and cell bank manufacturing. The project represents the company's largest investment to date in contract testing operations.

Washington University in St. Louis held a ceremonial groundbreaking for Riney Hall in October of 2024. Serving as a cornerstone for scholarly and educational collaborations, the 110,000-sf facility will create a new home for the School of Arts & Sciences at the heart of the Danforth Campus. The departments of Sociology and African-American Studies will be located in the two-story building, as well as the Office of Graduate Studies and the Center for Undergraduate Advising in Arts & Sciences.

The General Services Administration (GSA) completed construction on Building 53 at the Denver Federal Center in September of 2024. Designed by Gensler, the complex project involved the transformation of almost 200,000 sf in a 1940s-era structure into a modern and collaborative office environment. The sustainable facility collocates five federal agencies:

Lehigh University's new Health, Science & Technology Building is designed to break down silos between academic departments, to enhance faculty research and better prepare students for tomorrow’s transdisciplinary world. Three different lab modules—with no walls between them—facilitate easy transitions from one use to another, as well as expansion and contraction as needs change. And collaboration spaces are strategically located between labs throughout the building.

Prior to the development of a master plan for expansion of research facilities at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), campus facility planners conducted a 15-month strategic visioning initiative that resulted in the creation of a digital space planning and visualization tool called PREVIEW.

The University of California broke ground in September of 2024 on the Barbara and Gerson Bakar Research and Academic Building in San Francisco. Located on UCSF's Parnassus Heights campus, the $842 million facility was designed by HGA and Snøhetta to foster interdisciplinary discovery. The 323,000-gsf structure will feature advanced laboratories for programs in oncology, microbiology, diabetes, immunology, and cell biology.

Aviva Investors is constructing the 60,000-sf Sidney Sussex Building in Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Located at the Chesterford Research Park, the 60,000-sf life sciences facility will provide 10 individual laboratory environments in an inspiring natural setting. Each fully fitted suite will include open office areas and wet lab space equipped with benches, sinks, and fume hoods, supported by a dedicated plant room located on the same level. A floor of shared conference venues will promote collaboration and exchange.

The University of Pennsylvania dedicated Amy Gutmann Hall in September of 2024 in Philadelphia. Providing a centralized home for both undergraduate and research programs in data science and artificial intelligence, the $140 million facility collocates shared resources in order to make data analysis tools more accessible to the entire university community. The 116,000-sf structure was designed by Lake Flato and KSS Architects with Research Facilities Design (RFD) as laboratory design consultant. 

AstraZeneca officially opened The Hub on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in October of 2024. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, this dynamic amenities center offers inviting settings for collaboration, engagement, and relaxation that are available to both corporate employees and the local community. The facility's 39,460-sf internal floor area accommodates a fitness center, treatment rooms, and areas for health screening and occupational health services. Other features include a nursery and preschool, a café, a bar, a shop, and an inviting garden.

Yale University broke ground in late September of 2024 on the Physical Sciences and Engineering Building (PSEB) in New Haven, Conn. Offering 50 laboratories, the 253,000-sf structure was designed by TenBerke and Ballinger to equip future generations of quantum scientists, engineers, and physicists. Research Facilities Design is the laboratory planning consultant for the six-level project, which will feature sophisticated instrumentation and fabrication environments that drive university-wide collaborations.

Bowie State University opened the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in August of 2024 in Bowie, Md. Designed by Perkins&Will, the $166 million facility will connect students across diverse disciplines in a vibrant hub for exploration and discovery. The 192,000-sf structure will house the departments of communications, history and government, and language, literature, and cultural studies. This new campus destination will also accommodate Bowie State's Military Science (ROTC) programs.

When Wayne State University in Detroit released its campus plan—the Wayne Framework—in 2018, no one could have guessed how prophetic the school’s new approach would turn out to be. Rather than creating a campus plan that sets a specific schedule of chronological tasks and building projects, the Wayne Framework instead focuses on how the school should evaluate priorities on an ongoing basis, allowing the facilities department to remain flexible enough to adapt to unforeseen circumstances. Within a few years of launching the Framework, those circumstances would include a global pandemic, catastrophic flooding, and numerous university leadership changes.

The University at Buffalo broke ground on the $111 million Russell L. Agrusa Hall in September of 2024. Accommodating the continued growth of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, this hub of student-centric activity was designed by Page to prepare the STEM workforce of tomorrow to address society's greatest challenges. The state-of-the-art facility will include interactive spaces to support university-wide collaborations, as well as maker spaces, prototyping and fabrication suites, and areas for organizations and clubs.

King Street Properties has announced the substantial completion of the South Building at the Landing, a purpose-built complex for biomedical innovation. Designed by Perkins&Will, the seven-story, 300,000-sf facility offers 46,500-sf floor plates and advanced MEP systems to support a 60/40 lab-to-office ratio. Robust research programs can be accommodated by 15-foot deck-to-deck heights, with expansive 20-foot heights available on the ground floor.