The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology initiated construction in July of 2009 on the $62 million University Design Hub in Melbourne, Australia. The 12,000-sm building will support research and teaching in the disciplines of architecture, textile and fashion design, industrial design, landscape architecture, urban design, engineering, fine art, and creative media.
Lewis-Clark State College’s $16 million Nursing and Health Sciences Building will open in August of 2009. Located in Lewiston, Idaho, the 60,000-sf Sacajawea Hall will provide classrooms, training labs, simulation suites, and research facilities. The building will house LCSU’s Nursing and Health Sciences and Natural Sciences Divisions.
San Diego City College has selected Rudolph and Sletten to construct its 73,000-sf science building. Designed by Harley Ellis Devereaux, the facility will house classrooms and laboratories for physical and life sciences including biology, botany, microbiology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, marine biology, and oceanography. Construction will begin in early 2010.
Paris Junior College opened its $13 million academic building in Greenville, Texas, in July of 2009. Designed by SHW Group of Dallas, the two-story, 42,000-sf facility contains flexible, technology-enabled classrooms, a science lab, a computer lab, a library, administrative offices, and a large meeting room that can also be used as a classroom. The facility will serve 2,500 students and was constructed by Charter Builders of Dallas. The project represents the first building in the college's multiphase plan for the 172-acre site.
William Carey University is building the College of Osteopathic Medicine in Hattiesburg, Miss. Slated for occupancy in fall of 2010, the first phase is comprised of a 46,000-sf facility housing classrooms and laboratories. The second and third phases will reach completion in 2014 providing teaching amphitheaters, conference rooms, and administrative offices. The total construction cost for the project is $11 million.
The University of British Columbia is planning to renovate two buildings of the Biological Sciences Complex in Vancouver, Canada. Designed by Acton Ostry Architects with RFD (Research Facilities Design) as laboratory design consultant, this upgrade work will consist of a total of 61,670-nsf of laboratory and laboratory support space. Together, these buildings will house research labs, bioimaging facilities, aquatic animal holding, classrooms, and academic offices.
City University of New York is constructing phase one of the $59 million Advanced Science Research Center. The 200,000-sf laboratory building will support research in photonics, nanotechnology, water and environmental sensing, structural biology, and neuroscience. Featuring a core cleanroom for diagnosis and fabrication, the Advanced Science Research Center will house advanced imaging instrumentation, a rooftop observatory, a 100-seat auditorium, a café, and an education center.
Texas A&M University broke ground on the Citrus Center in Weslaco on June 30, 2009. Designed by Kell Munoz of San Antonio, the research facility is slated for completion in summer of 2010. The two-story Citrus Center will house research labs, diagnostic labs, meeting rooms, classrooms, administrative offices, and faculty offices. A large open laboratory will feature tissue culture areas, a cold room, and a mass spectrometer. The facility will support research on citrus fruit growth and production.
The University of Miami (UM), working with Wexford Science & Technology of Hanover, Md., is embarking on the 211,000-sf phase one of a planned six-building, 2 million-sf UM Life Science Park aimed at both established and spin-off companies who want to work with university researchers. The facilities will encompass preconstructed wet labs, offices, and shared facilities for technology development, as well as housing for researchers and academia, and street-level retail.
The Burnham Institute for Medical Research has consolidated three Orlando offices in a new 175,000-sf, $85 million research facility designed to study diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Medical City is a 600-acre science and technology park within Windermere, Fla.-based Tavistock Group’s Lake Nona mixed-use master-planned community.
The Skidaway Institute of Oceanography has opened a new $5 million, 11,000-sf facility to further their research on marine and coastal systems. The Marine and Coastal Science Research and Instructional Center (MCSRIC) houses high-tech lab, conference, office, and collaboration space in a single-story building designed by Lord, Aeck & Sargent of Atlanta, who have targeted LEED Gold certification for the facility.
The recently opened 120,000-sf, $53 million School of Pharmacy building for the University of Waterloo is the first element of a planned Health Science Campus. The city of Kitchener donated eight prime development acres for the planned campus, which aims at bringing a wide range of health-related fields, including the Waterloo Region’s first medical school, together in a compact area. The School of Pharmacy building used mainly local materials in construction.
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.
