The demand for state-of-the-art highly specialized laboratory space is increasing dramatically, and research organizations are being challenged to deliver these spaces quickly, sustainably, and at low cost. Modular, prefabricated structures can be the solution to this challenge. In this session, Prashant Gongal examines two case studies of modular facilities – one built on an existing terrace over a parking structure (five modules) and another on a brown field site (10 modules) – which utilized existing utilities, provided redundancy and uninterrupted operation from external disruption, and were delivered with improved speed to market, costs, and sustainability goals.

In this webcast, session leaders examine shifts in planning and design of classrooms and buildings as a result of the pandemic. Lan Ying Ip and Stacey Chapman call upon a case study of the College of Education and Human Sciences at University of Nebraska to demonstrate how the elevated priorities of flexibility, technology integration, and highly specialized air handling equipment provided flexibility and resiliency. They detail facility features including transparency, classroom sizes, audio/visual technology for small and large group learning studios, collaboration lounges, and strategies to build communities with greater interdepartmental collaboration and student-student and student-faculty interaction.

The process of reconciling the competing themes of traditional vs. contemporary, broad vs. deep, micro vs. macro to create a building design “sweet spot” continues to evolve. Here you’ll see how that played out for Washington University in St. Louis in a new building for the Department of Computer Science with design strategies targeting flexible, foundational, adaptable, and enduring facilities. Presenters illustrate programming and space planning models for proximity, transparency, and convergence of people and ideas, and identify programmatic anchors in shared and public spaces that boost collaboration and put technical work on display to support recruitment, program building, and institutional reputation.

The criteria for project success is ultimately “build AND operate.”  Not just “build.”  Too many new science building capital projects end construction only to face O&M staffing that is too little, too late, and unprepared.  This results in building operational failures that damage whole science programs and cause financial losses for the sponsoring institutions.  Steve Westfall demonstrates here how the unique O&M manpower requirements for a new science building are actually knowable, quantitatively, years in advance of construction completion, and how that number can be used to drive institutional action plans for assuring that great new science buildings will be operationally successful, great new science buildings.