Biomedical

Duke University began construction in March of 2017 on a $115 million facility for the Pratt School of Engineering. Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the five-story, 150,000-gsf (88,000-nsf) building will feature two floors focused on active student learning, offering classrooms, teaching and design labs, a 200-seat auditorium, a Learning Commons, the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the Center for Energy, Engineering and Environment.

NextCorps opened an entrepreneurship hub in Rochester in February of 2018. Located in the Sibley Square building, the project was created by the University of Rochester, the state of New York, and the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital will begin construction in mid-2018 on a $412 research and innovation hub on its existing campus in Memphis, Tenn. Designed by The Crump Firm and Jacobs Engineering to foster interaction, the seven-story, 625,000-sf facility will feature open laboratories with glass walls offering ample natural light.

Taconic Biosciences, a breeder of mice and rats for medical research, opened its 8,000-sf headquarters in February of 2018 in East Greenbush, N.Y. Located in the Cancer Research Center Building on the University at Albany Health Sciences campus, the facility is strategically sited to optimize relationships with key stakeholders and customers. The space houses the company's leadership team, as well as members of its product strategy, marketing, human resources, finance, quality, customers service, and business technology units.

Princeton University is partnering with BioLabs to create the 31,000-sf Princeton Innovation Center BioLabs on the James Forrestal Campus in New Jersey. Accommodating up to 25 startup companies, the business incubator and coworking space will offer 68 lab benches, private offices, and hot desks in a collaborative environment designed to foster entrepreneurial innovation. Occupancy is expected in April of 2018. BioLabs is a national provider of shared lab and office facilities, with locations in San Francisco, San Diego, Boston, and New York. 

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh are partnering to renovate a former Ford assembly plant and showroom to create the $250 million Immune Transplant and Therapy Center in Bloomfield. Developed in partership with Wexford Science & Technology LLC, the 100-year-old structure will be transformed into an eight-story innovation hub providing labs, offices, and business incubator space.

The University of Copenhagen opened Maersk Tower in January of 2018 in Denmark. Designed by C.F. Møller Architects, the 460,000-sf project provides leading-edge teaching and research facilities for the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. Housing labs, classrooms, offices, auditoria, meeting rooms, and a conference center, the 16-story tower represents an extension of the Panum complex and features a science plaza at the main entrance linking the existing structures with the new tower.

The University of Washington opened the $87.8 million Nanoengineering & Sciences Building in December of 2017 in Seattle. Designed by ZGF, the 90,300-gsf interdisciplinary facility provides advanced research and teaching spaces for the departments of bioengineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and materials sciences. Strategically sited and constructed to minimize vibration, the building is located adjacent to the existing Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute to foster collaboration.

The Boston Society of Architects announced the winners of its 2017 design award in January of 2018.

Georgia State University is planning to construct a $35 million biocontainment research facility in Atlanta. Located on the Downtown campus, the 55,000-sf building will provide BSL-3 and BSL-4 laboratories for the study of infectious diseases and select agents. The project, which will be the first academic BSL-4 facility in the Southeast, will include open research labs, offices, and support space. 

The Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) is designed for the researchers of the future: up-and-coming scientists who prefer a streamlined, team approach to research, rather than being trapped by organizational limitations; a collaborative, not leader-driven, environment; and technology-enabled methods and workspaces. The intention is to foster multidisciplinary interaction in flexible spaces, as they pursue innovative solutions for cancer research.

The Francis Crick Institute (informally known as “the Crick”) is one of the world’s largest dedicated biomedical research centers. Its formal agenda is “to discover the basic biology underlying human health, improving the treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of disease, and generating economic opportunities for the UK.” Achieving this agenda has required some unusual architectural strategies, centered on the notion of “discovery without boundaries”—boundaries between scientific disciplines, institutions, laboratories, and individual researchers—which lies at the heart of the Crick’s culture.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology began operations in its BSL-4 laboratories in January of 2018. Supporting research on infectious diseases and select agents, the biocontainment facility will enable scientists to develop innovative strategies for the detection and mitigation of pathogenic threats. Construction began on the facility in 2011 with trial operations beginning in 2015.

Chicago’s newly opened Shirley Ryan AbilityLab is the world’s first translational research hospital where scientists, engineers, technologists, and clinicians work collaboratively with thousands of patients going through intensive post-traumatic and disease-related functional rehabilitation. This unique integrated model dramatically shortens the amount of time between research innovations and practical clinical applications.

The University at Buffalo opened the $375 million Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in December of 2017 on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Designed by HOK, the collaborative 628,000-sf complex offers active learning environments, a surgical robotics center, simulation training suites, a gross anatomy lab, administrative and departmental offices, and 150,000 sf of flexible, multidisciplinary laboratories.