The University of Kentucky opened its renovated Student Center in late April of 2018 in Lexington. The 378,000-sf facility features a three-story atrium with a terraced interaction staircase offering informal spaces for studying and socializing. Designed by Perkins+Will, the $200 million project includes two towers, one housing a 564-seat cinema and the other a black box theater.
The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is building the $200 million Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Neuroscience Research Building in Pasadena. Designed by SmithGroup to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration, the three-story, 150,000-sf facility will provide wet, dry, and computational research labs, a teaching lab, a vivarium, a 150-seat lecture hall, conference rooms, and offices for investigators and staff.
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center celebrated the opening of the $39.7 million Center for Healthcare Improvement and Patient Simulation (CHIPS) in Memphis in May of 2018. Designed by brg3s architects, the three-story, 45,000-sf facility will enable students from the colleges of dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, health professions, graduate health sciences, and medicine to train together in the delivery of team-based care.
Vermeulens has released its market outlook report for the first quarter of 2018. Key points include:
These are trying times for public higher education. Scarce capital funding, changing student demographics, missed enrollment targets, hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance, combined with the academic shift to active learning—all these factors, and more, suggest the need to rethink the traditional residential campus. Bowling Green State University (BGSU) has taken a wide-ranging look at the physical form and mode of operation of its campus, with an eye on more productive asset utilization and greater design flexibility. Its phased, multi-year plan has entailed demolition, renovation and adaptive reuse, and new construction. The plan also reflects a new vision of shared spaces that allow the school to do more with less, implemented by minimizing or eliminating single-use spaces, designing versatile classrooms that accommodate a variety of programs, creating multipurpose buildings that welcome a wide portion of the student body, and expanding the scheduling window.
A leader in the field of plant sciences, Iowa State University, in Ames, Iowa, is recognized as a pipeline of new ideas and talent for the state’s massive agriculture industry. Yet despite explosive growth in biosciences enrollment at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, the most recent biosciences building was 30 years old and “bursting at the seams,” says Mark Rhoades, chief design officer and principal, The S/L/A/M Collaborative.
Texas A&M University opened the $73 million Center for Infrastructure Renewal in April of 2018. Located on the RELLIS campus in Bryan, the 138,000-sf project accommodates research in nine critical infrastructure sectors: transportation systems, communications, advanced manufacturing, smart energy, information technology, chemicals, nuclear reactors, materials and waste, and water and wastewater systems.
The University of Nebraska at Kearney broke ground in May of 2018 on the $30 million Discovery Hall. Replacing the existing Otto Olsen building, the collaborative 90,000-sf facility will accommodate programs in mathematics, engineering, physics and astronomy, construction management, industrial distribution, interior design, aviation, and computer sciences and information technology. The interdisciplinary STEM building will provide technology-rich labs and classrooms, a full-motion simulator, and an ITEC Testing Center.
The University of Edinburgh opened the £23 million Charnock Bradley Building in May of 2018 in Scotland. Located on the Easter Bush campus, the 75,000-sf facility is part of the school's master plan to create the European Centre of Excellence in Animal Sciences and Food Security. Designed by Atkins Global, the project houses teaching labs, student services, exhibition space, and the Roslin Innovation Centre, a business incubator with research and office space for startups and industry partners.
The University of Illinois broke ground in late April of 2018 on the $48 million Siebel Center for Design in Champaign. Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the two-story, 59,000-sf facility will act as a campus-wide hub for human-centered design thinking and learning. Connecting the north and south areas of campus, the multidisciplinary center will feature five team-based collaboration studios, accommodating a total of 400 students, and a large workshop for 3D printing, fabrication, CNC machining, and laser and water-jet cutting.
Bentley University has been awarded LEED Platinum sustainable design certification for the $45 million Bentley Arena in Waltham, Mass. Designed by Architectural Resources Cambridge, the 76,000-sf project is the only standalone ice arena in the nation to have attained LEED Platinum. The multipurpose facility includes a glass-walled function room, a sports medicine center, state-of-the-art locker rooms, strength and conditioning suites, and a student-run media control room.
Manhattan College broke ground in late April of 2018 on the Patricia and Cornelius Higgins Engineering and Science Center in New York City. Designed by Mitchell/Giurgola Architects, the three-story, 30,000-sf facility will feature a grand atrium, collaborative learning spaces, and 14 technology-rich labs for teaching and research. Physically connected to a refurbished Leo Hall and adjacent to the existing Research and Learning Center, the project will offer a total of 140,000 sf of academic space for engineering and the sciences.
The University of Cambridge opened a £60 million facility for the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology in April of 2018 in the United Kingdom. Designed by BDP to promote collaboration and interaction, the 118,400-sf facility features a central atrium, BSL-2 and BSL-3 biological laboratories, cleanrooms, laser labs, optical and imaging suites, and a magnetic resonance research center.
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro broke ground in April of 2018 on the $105 million Nursing and Instructional Building. Accommodating STEM programs for the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Health and Human Sciences, and the College of Nursing, the five-story, 180,000-sf facility will provide simulation training suites, classrooms, research labs, faculty offices, and teaching labs for biology, chemistry, and anatomy. Occupancy is expected in summer of 2020. A new chiller plant will also be constructed.
The University of Michigan broke ground in April of 2018 on the $75 million Ford Motor Company Robotics Building in Ann Arbor. Located on the North Campus, the four-story, 140,000-sf facility will provide the College of Engineering with collaborative research and development labs, classrooms, offices, high-bay spaces, a three-story fly zone for autonomous aerial vehicles, and an outdoor obstacle course for walking robots. Ford Motor Company will occupy a laboratory on the top floor of the building and is providing $15 million in funding for the project.
