Modernization

It started, not with a budget or a space, but with an idea. Today, that idea has become seven stories of collaborative lab space for cutting-edge genomic research, called the New York Genome Center (NYGC). It happened with the help of innovative solutions that allowed a team to repurpose ordinary office space in a select but heavily regulated neighborhood. The result is a large, flexible, and productive facility that brings together laboratories, conference areas, a data center, and clinical space to encourage innovation and discovery—all while achieving LEED Gold certification.

Kewaunee Scientific has partnered with international design studio Rainlight to create the CODA laboratory furniture benching system. CODA’s modular design offers adjustable height surfaces, moveable shelving, and integrated lighting, with companion tables available to complement the main system. With spans of up to 10 feet long between structural supports, CODA’s bench enables greater flexibility for lab layout.

Ivy Tech Community College will invest $43 million to renovate and expand facilities on two campuses. The $17.2 million Downtown North Building in Muncie will be constructed to accommodate the Culinary Arts program, which will feature a chocolates laboratory, a café, testing and assessment rooms, and student services. A $12.7 million upgrade of the Fisher Building will build out the fourth floor to house the School of Nursing and the School of Health Sciences, with teaching labs sited on a renovated basement level. A new south entrance will also be created.

Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) has mandated that Building Information Modeling (BIM) be implemented in the final phase of its $9 billion construction program. LACCD, which is the largest community college district in the United States and comprises nine colleges, is also targeting net-zero energy consumption in the sustainable development of its extensive portfolio.

What the university needs: A spacious, modern science building, with an additional 5,000 sf. What the university has: An old, dark, rather cramped classroom building, built for a different era in education, with inadequate systems, and no room to expand. It’s a common problem on university campuses, and in many cases solving it requires flexibility, creativity, and patience. At the University of Pittsburgh, Howard Skoke, AIA, of EwingCole Architects and Engineers and the university’s own Ilona Beresford worked together on a six-month master plan to devise a $65 million modernization. The project, scheduled to begin construction in May 2019, will open the building to new uses and adapt its systems for health and efficiency. At the same time, it will preserve a historic exterior and cost far less than a new building.

Prism Capital Partners is engaged in the redevelopment of the former Hoffmann-La Roche site in New Jersey to create the ON3 campus. Providing integrated research, office, and recreational facilities, the mixed-use campus currently houses a 73,000-sf laboratory building partially leased by biofabrication firm Modern Meadow, with plans for the construction of an adjacent pilot manufacturing plant under way.

Georgia Tech is engaged in a renewal of Prince Gilbert Library in Atlanta. Designed by Praxis 3 to provide sophisticated physical and digital spaces for students, faculty, and staff, the Library Next project includes a new connection between the two existing buildings as well as the creation of flexible workspaces, reading rooms, collaboration areas, conference spaces, and technology labs for audio, video, computing, and visualization activities. Ground was broken on the project in summer of 2016 and completion is expected in early 2020.  

As many institutions of higher education increase STEM offerings, the impact can be more pronounced at liberal arts colleges, because the growth in STEM typically results in new construction or renovation in their only science building. The construction of new space is most challenging in organic chemistry, where the number of fume hoods per section is a unique pedagogical requirement. To avoid disrupting a department entirely during construction, an institution can encourage students to take a course elsewhere—at a community college or nearby university partner—or to plan their schedule to avoid the downtime. But this reduces only the number of sections, not the entire need, because maintaining the faculty’s teaching ability and course’s availability to students are critical to the institutional mission. The solution is to find or create swing space.

The University System of New Hampshire has selected Sightlines to perform a comprehensive Facility Condition Assessment and lifecycle study of core buildings on the four campuses that comprise the system, which includes approximately 9.6 million gsf of educational facilities and supporting infrastructure.

As academic institutions seek to bolster their competitiveness with new STEM capabilities, a fundamental early project question is whether an existing building can be renovated or new construction is necessary. The answer can have as much to do with shifting program priorities or campus culture as it does with infrastructure or cost—and it may not be obvious at the outset.

A dynamic, forward-looking partnership between the University of Michigan Medical School and the A. Alfred Taubman Health Sciences Library has transformed a relatively hidden, introverted, and utilitarian 1970s book repository into a vibrant 21st century learning hub. But the original goal of this $55 million renovation project was much more modest than a whole-building transformation: It was simply to improve the medical student lounge, a windowless basement space that with each passing year had become less inviting to prospective and current students, as other medical schools improved their student-life spaces.

Mayo Clinic’s Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology (DLMP) has relocated and consolidated three laboratories—Endocrine, Toxicology and Drug Monitoring, and the Proteomics Core Mass Spectrometry Development Lab (CMSL)—into a singular core mass spectrometry laboratory. The two-story, 65,000-gsf addition to the Superior Drive Support Center (SDSC) is 10 to 15 minutes from Mayo Clinic’s downtown Rochester, Minn., campus.

• Major Trends in Research Facility Planning and Design
• NIH Receives a $2 Billion Funding Boost
• The Next-Next Generation Workplace
• Intel Designs Next Generation Workplace for Recruitment and Retention
• Transforming Existing Spaces into Active Learning Classrooms  
• Future Proofing Vivarium Space Through Flexible Design
• University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s New Space Allocation System
• “Super Lab” Improves Student Learning, Challenges Faculty Adaptability
• Maker Spaces: The Bridge Between Higher Education and Industry
• UPenn Replaces the HVAC System of a Fully Occupied, Operational Chemistry Facility

GlaxoSmithKline began construction in December of 2016 on a 100,000-sf SMART laboratory and office facility in Upper Providence, Pa. Skanska has been awarded the $45 million contract for demolition and renovation of four floors in an existing structure to implement GSK’s Smart Space concept, which features integrated technological innovations for research and productivity. Completion is expected in October of 2017.

Whether personal or professional, change evokes an emotional response. Workplace change initiatives, especially those relating to space, nudge (or jolt) employees out of their comfort zones and typically entail some modification in routine and behavior. Relationships change, as well, and questions arise about how to continue performing at a high level in the new environment. The fastest, most productive change strategies take these human dimensions into account.