The seven-story, 310,000-gsf Life Science Laboratories (LSL) building at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the first interdisciplinary science building on the flagship campus, provides dry, damp, and wet lab space for a wide range of disciplines, from physics and engineering (dry) to biology and environmental science (damp) to chemical engineering and chemistry (wet).
University College London has awarded Graham Construction a $25 million contract to renovate the existing Courtauld Building to create a biomedical research facility. The project will house the Medical Research Council's Prion Unit and will accommodate the study of dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
The Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine broke ground in March of 2015 on a $32.4 million instructional building in Fort Smith. Designed by Risley & Associates, the three-story, 102,000-sf facility will provide classrooms, laboratories, and faculty offices. The project will be built by Beshears Construction and Nabholz Construction with completion expected by fall of 2017.
Concordia College is planning to create an integrated science complex in Moorhead, Minn. Designed by EYP Architecture and Engineering and Foss Architecture, the $45 million project includes the complete renovation of two conjoined facilities totaling 108,000 sf and construction of a three-story, 58,000-sf atrium. The complex will support collaborative, discovery-based learning in mathematics and the sciences with neighborhoods of classrooms, laboratories, and offices interspersed with informal study and social spaces.
Mercer University School of Medicine is engaged in an $18 million expansion of its Savannah campus at Memorial University Medical Center. Allowing an increase in enrollment from 160 to 240 students, the project includes renovation of 26,500 sf in the Hoskins Center for Biomedical Research to create updated classrooms, offices, labs, and library space. A 31,000-sf addition will be constructed to provide exam rooms for clinical training, simulation labs, tutorial rooms, student study spaces, and a student lounge.
The College of Lake County broke ground in March of 2015 on the $28.3 million Science and Engineering Building in Grayslake, Ill. The project includes construction of a three-story, 41,900-sf facility housing four laser and photonics labs, five chemistry labs, and an engineering lab. Additionally, 25,000 sf of existing space will be renovated to create labs for biology, microbiology, and anatomy and physiology.
The University of Toledo’s Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center is equipped with an i-Space™—the world’s first five-sided seamless LED virtual reality center for medical training, education, and research—and a virtual hospital outfitted with human patient simulators, state-of-the-art clinical equipment, and observation, control and debriefing rooms. The five-sided CAVE required a four-inch-thick glass floor weighing two tons.
Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences will begin construction in summer of 2015 on the $45 million Medical Academic and Simulation Center in Tulsa. The four-story, 223,000-sf facility will include classrooms, clinical skills labs, a lecture hall, conference space, and a five-story parking garage. A hospital simulation center will include an emergency room, a surgical suite, a birthing room, an ambulance bay, and an intensive care unit to support advanced medical training.
Delaware State University is building the $60 million Optical Science Center for Applied Research (OSCAR) in Dover. Ground was broken on the 53,000-sf facility in October of 2012 and construction began in July of 2013. Designed by Richärd+Bauer, OSCAR will house the University’s optics program and is being built as two structures in separate construction phases.
SUNY Polytechnic Institute is partnering with the New York Power Authority to create the Advanced Grid Innovation Laboratory for Energy (AGILe) in Albany, N.Y. Supporting collaborative energy infrastructure research, the facility will enable the simulation, development, testing, and deployment of advanced electrical grid technologies.
The 12-story McGlothlin Medical Education Center at Virginia Commonwealth University houses classrooms, office space, and simulation facilities that shift the focus away from lecture-based learning and towards experiential learning. The 25,000-sf Center for Human Simulation and Patient Safety—a state-of-the-art facility serving medical students, residents, and continuing medical education students in both the Simulation and Standardized Patient programs—occupies two floors.
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte dedicated the Siemens Energy Large Manufacturing Solutions Laboratory in March of 2015. Accommodating research on precision dimensional measurement of large-scale energy components, the facility features a 30-ton Leitz PMM-F machine housed in a temperature-controlled room. The lab is located in the Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC) and was supported by $2 million in funding from Siemens Energy and Hexagon Metrology.
Missouri State University is building the $19.5 million O’Reilly Clinical Health Sciences Center in Springfield. The 50,000-sf facility will provide a multidisciplinary health clinic, medical skills training labs, simulation suites, classrooms, offices, and space for nursing and occupational therapy programs. Construction began on the project in July of 2014 and completion is expected in fall of 2015.
Stony Brook University is planning to build the $62 million Innovation and Discovery Center in the 246-acre Research and Development Park in Stony Brook, N.Y. Designed by Mitchell Giurgola Architects, the 200,000-gsf business incubator will provide laboratory and office space for innovative biotechnology and high-tech companies. Construction will begin in spring of 2016 and completion is expected within three years.
The University of Warwick began construction in March of 2015 on the $220 million National Automotive Innovation Campus in Coventry in the United Kingdom. Created in partnership with Jaguar Land Rover, Warwick Manufacturing Group, and Tata Motors, the 355,000-sf R&D facility will provide advanced engineering labs, design studios, virtual reality suites, demonstration areas, and instructional space. The general contractor for the project is Balfour Beatty. Occupancy is expected in early 2017.
