Higher Education

Maui Community College's planned $26 million, 34,000-sf science building, designed by Design Partners of Honolulu, is targeted for LEED Gold certification-a real challenge, as some of the LEED criteria, such as using building materials obtained from within a few hundred miles, are impossible for the island location. The building will house eight separate laboratories, a lecture hall, a large foyer intended for exhibitions, and a small, separate observatory. "Green" features will include solar photovoltaic panels, rooftop wind turbines, skylights, and light wells.

The Engineering Department at Yamagata University is planning to begin construction in fall 2009 on a 6,000-square-meter research center in Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture. The 1- to 2-billion yen facility will focus on research in organic electroluminescence-the use of organic material that emits light with the application of electric current, a process which consumes much less electricity compared to other forms of illumination. Anticipated applications of the process include use in cell phones and TV screens.

A Louisiana State University study published in The Southern Medical Journal concludes that greater use of stairs in buildings could help to solve the nation's weight problem. Staircases can be made a central feature of new buildings with the use of improved lighting, air conditioning, carpeting, painted walls, artwork, motivational signs, and even music to make using the stairs more attractive to building users.

Construction has finished at Temple University’s new $160 million state-of-the-art School of Medicine building. Ballinger of Philadelphia designed the 11-story, 480,000-sf facility to provide 100,000 sf for medical education,  160,000 sf for patient care research, and 249,000 sf of dedicated educational laboratories and research space.  The emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration is exemplified by the Health Sciences Center library, cominbining the fields of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, and the related health professions.

The Harry R. Brooks Complex for Science, Mathematics and Technology at Wilson College, completed in January, hopes to qualify for LEED certification. The $25 million, 76,500-sf facility, a renovation and expansion of the existing Paul Swain Havens Science Center, was managed by R.S. Mowery & Sons Inc., a general contractor in Mechanicsburg, Pa. Research Facilities Design (RFD) served as the laboratory building design consultant. A two-story atrium provides ample natural light to the building.

The Helen Diller Family Cancer Research Building at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), opened at the university’s biomedical research and education Mission Bay campus. The 163,865-gsf, five-story building was designed by Rafael Vinoly and is exclusively dedicated to cancer research, treatment, and prevention. Translational research into cancer’s basic biological mechanisms, brain tumors, urologic oncology, pediatric oncology, cancer population sciences, and computational biology will all be housed at the new facility.

The University of Minnesota (UM) and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are planning the NuMI Off-Axis Electron Neutrino Appearance Experiment (NOvA), which will be built 45 feet below ground near Ash River, Minn. The $270 million project , which has received $40 million in Federal stimulus grant funding, will operate as a UM School of Physics and Astronomy lab. The balance of the funding will come from the U.S. Department of Energy. The subatomical research is expected to shed light on the origins of the universe.

Computer Guidance Corporation, developer of financial and project management software solutions for architecture, engineering, and construction companies, announced the launch of its eCMS construction management software solution on a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform. As a hosted solution, eCMS offers the same fully-integrated financial, project, and productivity management solution functionalities and benefits as the traditional enterprise-class eCMS system, but uses a hosted software business model and IT architecture.

DePaul’s new Monsignor Andrew J. McGowan Science Building, housing the departments of chemistry, environmental sciences, and biological sciences,  was designed and constructed with LEED certification in mind. The structure contains classrooms, labs, academic offices, and greenhouses.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will award approximately eight to twelve grants, totalling $120 million, in early 2010 to higher education institutions and nonprofits to build or expand their scientific research capabilities. The grants, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestments Act of 2009, will be competitive, with Letters of Intent due to NIST by June 25, and full proposals by August 10. A variety of facilities--labs, test and measurement facilities, research computing facilities, observatories—will be considered.

$2 billion from Canada's federal government is being targeted at creating a Knowledge Infrastructure Program to support health care, research, and education.

Construction of the $38-million WSU Vancouver Applied Technology Classroom Building will begin this year.

Labor rates, material prices and competition in the commercial construction marketplace are combining to make this a great year to put up a building.

Blue Ridge Community College broke ground in May of 2009 on the $7.5 million Advanced Technology Center in Weyers Cave, Va. Slated for completion by spring of 2011, the 20,500-sf facility will house laboratories for instruction in machining, automated manufacturing, electronics, robotics, and R&D.

The University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine opened the Regenerative Medicine Laboratory at the William R. Pritchard Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital in May of 2009. Housing advanced facilities to process, culture, and store equine stem cells, the laboratory will also provide stem cell collection kits to veterinarians for harvesting stem cells from blood or bone marrow.