Latest Reports

The new Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., is designed for groundbreaking performance and efficiency, with expectations of achieving an energy use intensity (EUI) of approximately 18 compared to the average usage of 130 at other campus buildings. Maintaining low energy consumption, optimizing occupant comfort, minimizing the mechanical cooling needs, and expressing energy performance through design were especially important goals for the institute, which is intended to be a living laboratory for educating the next generation of energy experts.

New rules on mass timber construction in the 2021 International Building Code (IBC) significantly expand the opportunities to use engineered wood as the primary structural material in laboratory buildings. The updated version of the code establishes three new types of construction that now permit “mass timber buildings of taller heights, more stories above grade, and greater allowable areas compared to existing provisions for heavy timber buildings,” according to a summary from the International Code Council.

New teaching facilities for science and engineering stress flexibility and interdisciplinarity, but how much flexibility is appropriate? Michael Lauber, principal at Ellenzweig in Boston, cites three recent university-level projects at Michigan State University, University of Maine, and Rice University to demonstrate how to achieve varying levels of flexibility with lab infrastructure and casework, and how the floorplan can enable occupants to easily adapt their space to ever-changing pedagogical goals in multiple STEM disciplines.

The North Carolina State Legislature often receives requests from its representatives for funding to construct new academic buildings at the state universities in their districts. Lately, it’s been all about STEM facilities. STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) jobs are predicted to increase faster than other kinds of positions in the 2020s, so some requests represent a legitimate response to the need for STEM graduates. But which universities truly need more space? To help them allocate funding sensibly, the University of North Carolina System Office commissioned a statewide study, using an innovative methodology balancing current utilization, building conditions, and future space needs.

Unity Hall, Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s new five-story, 100,000-sf academic and research building, brings together faculty from robotics, data science, bioinformatics, and computational biology. Highlights of the $80 million building, which opened in January 2022, are the flexibility of the lab spaces, the varied and numerous collaboration zones and spaces, and the standardized size of faculty offices.