Higher Education

The University of British Columbia opened the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) in Vancouver in November of 2011. The $37 million facility is heralded as the most sustainable building in North America and will act as a living laboratory for research and innovation on global sustainability challenges. CIRS is one of only a handful of buildings worldwide that provide “net positive” benefits to the environment.

The University of Manchester completed the £20 million Dalton Cumbrian Facility in November of 2011. The laboratory is located in Moor Row, Cumbria, in the Westlakes Science and Technology Park. Housing the Dalton Nuclear Institute, the facility will support research on radiochemistry, radiation science, nuclear engineering, decommissioning, and radioactive waste management. The project team includes Wilson Mason Architects, project manager Drivers Jonas Deloitte, and contractor Morgan Sindall.

Michigan State University is building the $45 million Eli and Edith Broad Art Museum in East Lansing. The three-story, 46,000-sf facility will include exhibition space, an education wing, retail, and dining. LEED sustainable design certification will be sought for the project, which will feature daylighting, occupancy sensors, and advanced HVAC systems. Occupancy is expected in April of 2012. The project team includes:

The University of California, Davis broke ground in November of 2011 on the 8,000-sf Jess S. Jackson Sustainable Winery Building. The $4 million facility will provide energy for UC Davis' winery with photovoltaic arrays and fuel cells, as well as supplying captured rainwater for cleaning and landscaping. The project will enable the adjacent teaching winery, brewery, and food-processing complex to be entirely self sustainable and carbon neutral. Completion is expected in late 2012.

The University of Western Ontario completed the first 150,000-sf phase of construction for the Richard Ivey School of Business in November of 2011. The completed 270,000-sf facility will provide world-class teaching and research space and is expected to attain LEED Gold sustainable design certification. The construction cost is estimated at $110 million. 

Paradise Valley Community College opened its newly renovated Building Q in November of 2011 in Phoenix. Designed by SmithGroup, the $10.6 million, 69,600-sf project converted an existing county library building into an academic facility for mathematics with 23 classrooms, faculty offices, and support space. The building houses the college's Center for Teaching and Learning and Continuing Education and the 10,700-sf Arizona Agribusiness and Equine Center Charter School. The construction manager for the project was Jokake Construction.

SUNY Plattsburgh broke ground on a $14.2 million facility to house the Department of Computer Science and the School of Business and Economics in November of 2011. Designed by Gwathmey, Siegel, Kaufman and Associates, the building will provide faculty offices, technology-rich classrooms, a trading room, an accounting lab, reconfigurable computer labs, seminar rooms, study rooms, a rooftop garden, and two student commons. The general contractor is Pike Construction.

The University of Minnesota has installed a new wind turbine at the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory in Minneapolis. The 2.5 megawatt Clipper Liberty wind turbine will support teaching, research, and training for the sustainable energy industry. The turbine was funded by an award of $7.9 million in federal stimulus funding.

The University of Strathclyde opened the $58 million Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences in November of 2011 in Glasgow. The 86,111-sf facility was designed by Sheppard Robson to accommodate interdisciplinary research and development of advanced therapeutics. The six-story project houses a 160-seat teaching lab, research labs, a cleanroom, and the departments of physiology, bioscience, immunology, pharmaceutical sciences, and pharmacology.

Construction began in August of 2011 on the $168 million Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke. Representing a partnership of MIT, Harvard, Boston University, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts system, the two-story, 90,000-sf complex is strategically sited to benefit from hydroelectric power resources and lower electricity costs. The project will support the computational research needs of the five institutions.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice opened a $600 million facility in New York in November of 2011. The 14-story, 625,000-sf integrated campus occupies a city block. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the project provides an open-air plaza, teaching and research labs, smart classrooms, emergency management and high-rise simulator labs, lecture halls, seminar rooms, faculty offices, a conference center, a moot court, and administrative space. John Jay College is part of the City University of New York system. 

Construction began in November of 2011 on the $62.9 million Advanced Rare Isotope Laboratory (ARIEL) in Vancouver. The facility is being built at the University of British Columbia at TRIUMF, Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics. The 36,662-sf project will include an underground beam tunnel for the production of rare isotopes for medicine and research. The duration of construction will be 18 months. The facility represents a collaborative partnership of thirteen universities led by the University of Victoria.

Manchester University has awarded Bruntwood a $96.1 million contract to build a new facility for Manchester Business School. The first phase of construction comprises a hotel and conference center, with the second and third construction phases providing instructional space, administrative and faculty offices, and a resource and learning center. Construction will begin in 2012.

Utah State University’s USTAR BioInnovations Center was awarded LEED Gold sustainable design certification in October of 2011. The project team for the $60 million facility included AJC Architects and Gramoll Construction. The three-year project was completed within budget and ahead of schedule. Dedicated in October of 2010, the 118,000-sf building houses advanced life science research labs for several groups, including Synthetic BioManufacturing, Applied Nutrition Research, and Veterinary Diagnostics and Infectious Disease (VDID).

Huntsman Cancer Institute dedicated an $100 million expansion of its Salt Lake City hospital on October 28, 2011. Designed by Architectural Nexus and built by Okland Construction, the 156,000-sf addition doubles HCI's patient capacity. The expansion provides: