Piedmont Virginia Community College is constructing the $28 million Woodrow W. Bolick Advanced Technology + Student Success Center in Charlottesville. Designed by VMDO, the 46,537-sf facility will feature state-of-the-art labs and learning venues for programs in advanced manufacturing, robotics, forensics, and cybersecurity.
Boston University opened the $305 million Center for Computing & Data Sciences in early 2023 to create a dynamic new home for the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, the Department of Mathematics & Statistics, and the Computer Science program. Designed by KPMB Architects, the 19-story, 345,000-sf structure comprises a four-story podium topped by 13 floors, with MEP systems located on additional basement and penthouse levels.
The University of South Carolina is planning to break ground in 2025 on a new home for the School of Medicine in Columbia. Accommodating an expanded annual class size of 130 students, the highly transparent facility will feature world-class academic environments such as active learning classrooms, extensive medical simulation spaces, and a health science library. The 300,000-sf complex will catalyze biomedical discovery with a dedicated research building housing multidisciplinary laboratories.
Princeton University's Environmental Studies and School of Engineering and Applied Science (ES+SEAS) project, scheduled for completion in 2025, stretches 1,700 feet along a narrow 17.5-acre site. The complex will provide 670,000 gsf of lab, office, and collaboration space for five of the university’s science and engineering entities in three interconnected, four-story structures and a Commons. The project is notable not only for its massive scale but for its focus on fostering connections within and among groups that work in many different ways. The design realizes the university’s vision of creating identity, community, collaboration, inspiration, flexibility, and efficiency in an environment whose hallmark is a rich variety of bespoke non-lab space configurations that follow uniform standards for everything from office dimensions to lounge furnishings.
Carnegie Mellon University broke ground in December of 2023 on the $100 million Robotics Innovation Center in Pittsburgh. Designed by Perkins Eastman, the three-story, 150,000-sf facility will feature reconfigurable high-bay labs and flexible R&D venues that address robotic systems at different scales. Open wet labs will allow interdisciplinary teams to engage in group projects, supported by a range of specialized shops and instrumentation suites.
Bowdoin College has opened a sustainably designed complex in Brunswick that includes the John and Lile Gibbons Center for Arctic Studies and Barry Mills Hall. Designed by HGA, the two structures represent the first commercially scaled mass timber buildings in the state of Maine. The $37 million project offers a total of 46,000 sf of teaching, research, and museum space.
Louisiana State University Health Shreveport celebrated the completion of the $79 million Center for Medical Education in December of 2023. Designed by Perkins&Will and Coleman Partners Architects, the four-story, 155,000-sf facility features a 500-seat auditorium-in-the-round, three 250-seat active learning classrooms, and 27 flexible instructional venues. Simulation suites and clinical skills labs leverage immersive technologies to enhance experiential education and training.
The University of Michigan broke ground in December of 2023 on a $250 million research and education building in Detroit. Designed by KPF, the University of Michigan Center for Innovation (UMCI) will accommodate graduate programs in computer science, robotics, artificial intelligence, data science, cybersecurity, financial technology, and sustainability. The 200,000-sf facility will also foster engagement with area residents by offering professional development classes, certificate courses, and workforce training opportunities.
The University of Minnesota is renovating and expanding the historic Fraser Hall to create a central destination for chemistry programs on the Twin Cities campus. Designed by VJAA and BWBR Architects, the $144.7 million Chemistry Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories initiative involves the demolition of a portion of the existing building, a 95-year-old law library, and the removal of an addition built in 1954.
Arizona State University broke ground in December of 2023 on Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 12 (ISTB12). Located on the Polytechnic campus in Mesa, the $185 million project will provide the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering with a centralized home for the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks.
The University of South Alabama broke ground in December of 2023 on a dynamic new home for the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine in Mobile. Designed by Perkins&Will and Eskew Dumez Ripple, the $200 million facility will address a nationwide shortage of physicians by enabling the first-year class size to increase from 80 to 100, with the capability to accommodate 125 students in the future.
Cornell University is constructing the $54 million Atkinson Hall in Ithaca, N.Y. Designed by Lake Flato and SWBR Architects, the 104,000-gsf facility will meet the diverse needs of four unique programs, all of which are university-wide in scope. The multidisciplinary research building will house and support the growth of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, the Department of Computational Biology, the Center for Cancer Biology, and the Center for Immunology, including the Friedman Center for Nutrition and Inflammation.
The University of California, Berkeley broke ground in November of 2023 on the $136.8 million Undergraduate Academic Building. Designed by LMN Architects and TEF Design, the 78,000-sf project will offer more than 45,000 asf of modern learning space including 27 general assignment classrooms, informal study areas, and advising offices for College of Letters and Science. The technology-enabled facility will include flexible instructional venues of varying sizes to support a range of pedagogical styles.
HITT Contracting will relocate its headquarters to a planned 270,000-sf development in Falls Church, Va. Designed by Gensler, the six-story facility will advance the firm's aspiration to redefine the future of construction through innovation, partnership, and sustainability. The project involves the transformation of an existing office structure, previously a satellite campus operated by Virginia Tech, into a collaborative educational hub for the built environment.
In this white paper, researchers from brightspot, Buro Happold, and Occuspace used anonymized data from 38 universities to help answer questions about how library, fitness, dining, and office spaces are used, and how usage patterns vary. Together, these insights can help leaders in higher education make decisions about consolidating locations, shifting stacks to study space, optimizing adjacencies among different functions on a campus, incorporating student success functions within libraries, aligning fitness and dining operations with demands, and right-sizing the workplace to align with hybrid and remote work patterns.
