Higher Education

  • Designing a University Space for Collaboration—Then Making It Happen

    5-22-2019

    Universities across the country are looking to assemble students and faculty from different research interests in spaces that promote cross-disciplinary collaboration. Successful designs call for exteriors that beckon the entire campus community and flexible interior features that enable the institution to refresh the mix of researchers and projects at regular intervals. Such projects also call for encouraging a campus-wide sense of ownership of the building while establishing a space application review process. Opened in January 2017, the University of Idaho’s $52 million Integrated Research and Innovation Center (IRIC) works to accomplish these goals through building design choices and ongoing space management decisions. Randy Benedict, design leader and principal at NBBJ, and Russell McClanahan, IRIC facility manager, describe how those two activities—design and building management—work to make the IRIC a hub of interdisciplinary interactions at the campus in Moscow, Idaho.

  • Colorado State University Opens McIlwraith Translational Medicine Institute

    5-21-2019

    Colorado State University opened the $65 million C. Wayne McIlwraith Translational Medicine Institute in May of 2019 in Fort Collins.

  • Virginia Commonwealth University Plans STEM Building

    5-20-2019

    Virginia Commonwealth University is planning to build a $121 million facility in Richmond to accommodate programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

  • Pennsylvania State University Constructs Bellisario Media Center

    5-18-2019

    Pennsylvania State University began construction in April of 2019 on the Donald P. Bellisario Media Center in University Park.

  • Baldwin Wallace University Plans Center for Computer Science, Math, Engineering, and Physics

    5-17-2019

    Baldwin Wallace University is planning to construct a $25 million interdisciplinary science building in Berea, Ohio.

  • TMC3 Founding Institutions Unveil Master Plan for Life Sciences Research Campus

    5-16-2019

    The founding institutions of TMC3 have announced a new project team for their planned 37-acre translational research campus in Houston.

  • West Chester University Breaks Ground on Sciences & Engineering Center

    5-15-2019

    West Chester University broke ground in April of 2019 on the Sciences & Engineering Center in West Chester, Pa.

  • Academic Workplace Evolution: How Universities Are Rethinking Spaces for Faculty and Staff

    5-15-2019

    Colleges and universities are rethinking their workplaces to align their space with how people work today and to use space to achieve their strategic goals. Beyond macro forces reshaping higher education in terms of access, accountability, and financial stability, there is a confluence of financial, environmental, technological, and cultural factors prompting this change, including increasing numbers of administrative staff and a growing disengagement among faculty and staff. But the most common mistake that institutions make when trying to change their workplace is assuming that they are trying to solve a space problem. Even if the impetus for a project is a space problem—you’re out of space and have no place to put the new faculty or staff member you just hired!—you won’t solve it by thinking about it that way. It’s more complex and nuanced than that. What you need first is a workplace strategy, a coherent statement that describes how your space will be used to help you achieve your larger strategic goals.

  • University of Maryland Opens Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering

    5-14-2019

    The University of Maryland opened the $152 million Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering in April of 2019 in College Park.

  • Centennial College Opens Downsview Aerospace Campus

    5-12-2019

    Centennial College opened the CAD$72 million Downsview Campus Centre for Aerospace and Aviation in April of 2018 in Toronto.