Latest Reports

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.

Health education institutions nationwide are pivoting toward instructional programs anchored around interprofessional team-based care models that satisfy accreditation requirements and better prepare tomorrow’s healthcare professionals by simulating real-world environments. In addition to improving outcomes, integrating multiple departments with shared resources can also increase space efficiency and lower operating costs.

The 92,000-sf, three-story GuideWell Innovation Center, located in the heart of the Lake Nona Medical City health and life sciences park in Orlando, Fla., is designed to be the epicenter for the development of new healthcare solutions. The building—which provides space for long-term lease, short-term projects, meetings, and social gatherings—can accommodate wet lab and office uses with an infrastructure that encourages the collaboration necessary to help companies move their ideas from brainstorming to commercialization.

A new approach to the design of diagnostic labs in resource-constrained settings reduces risk and improves outcomes while accelerating the project timeline and lowering costs. The approach is based on the concept of One Prototype, which uses similar design modules as a starting point for each lab facility, whether new construction or renovation, no matter what the scale.