Latest Reports

Optimizing facilities is about the people and animals inside the buildings just as much as it is about the buildings themselves. As a facility with a One Health focus, University of Washington (UW) vivariums operate within the framework that humans, animals, and the environment are interconnected, and that caring for one means caring for the other two. While the concept behind One Health has informed the global scientific community since the beginning of modern medicine, the term and its application to vivarium facilities management is relatively new. 

More and more universities are building their scientific research centers around cores of huge, heavy, yet surprisingly delicate equipment. Building a core laboratory facility forces architects and campus planners to think about logistics, timing, and backup systems to a level of detail probably more familiar to NASA engineers than institutional architects. As the team behind Emory University’s new Health Sciences Research Building II (HSRB-II) learned, a huge range of factors—in their case, everything from the amount of rebar in the flooring to the width of the corridors to shipping velocity on the Suez Canal—must be reckoned with before such a facility is completed.

In both the public and private sector, the pendulum has swung away from remote work, and many leaders want their employees to come back to the office more days per week. While good workplace design can help make workplaces commute-worthy, the success of any return-to-office strategy depends on a mix of operational protocols and design decisions, says Kay Sargent, director of thought leadership, interiors, at global design, architecture, engineering and planning firm HOK.

Mass timber construction is widely lauded for its sustainability benefits, including wood’s natural carbon sequestration, lower embodied energy footprint, lighter weight compared to steel or concrete, and essential renewability. But does it pay off in terms of a university’s performance standards and cost concerns when embarking on a project as ambitious as Oregon State University’s Jen-Hsun and Lori Mills Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex, a $213 million, 143,000-sf facility dedicated to advanced programs in artificial intelligence, robotics, energy, and materials science? Scott Ashford, OSU’s dean of the College of Engineering, and Libby Ramirez, the university’s resident architect, argue that with careful strategy and an eye toward the data, the answer is “yes.”

Workplace occupancy planning used to be straightforward: People were assigned to an office, cubicle, or facility, and that is where they worked. Not so in the current hybrid work world. Traditional space and occupancy techniques are struggling to handle the complexity of today’s diverse facility use patterns. And increased pressure and regulations related to sustainability and energy usage only add to the challenge. However, AI is beginning to transform space and occupancy planning.