Latest Reports

The University of Toronto’s new 110,000-sf, five-story Environmental Science and Chemistry Building (ESCB), on the suburban Scarborough, Ontario, campus, provides undergraduate students and faculty with labs that feature transparency, flexibility, and adaptability, with a modular design of open, double-sided benches. Benches and associated service columns can be removed and relocated as needed, so dry lab space can be easily converted to wet lab functions without renovations.

In order to increase capacity, improve student/faculty ratios, and boost space utilization by 150 percent, Purdue University’s College of Engineering developed a five-year strategic plan for increasing efficiency and space on the College’s main campus. The plan—which was driven by the need to meet the goal of a 30 percent growth in engineering faculty and staff, along with growth of graduate and undergraduate students—combines a mix of strategies including renovation, portfolio rebalancing, and new construction.

The 11-story, 820,000-sf Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion (AHSP) integrates world-class patient care, medical research, and teaching in a highly collaborative environment. Designed to bridge the gap between discovery and patient care, this new facility—home of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, neurosciences programs, and stem cell research—puts research labs in close proximity to clinical settings, so physician-scientists can transform medical care at Cedars-Sinai.

A three-story, 69,000-sf addition and 21,000-sf renovation to the Mathias Laboratory at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center greatly enhance the Institution’s capacity for environmental research in Chesapeake Bay. A two-story atrium connects the old and new sections and creates collaboration space for more than 180 researchers, technicians, and students investigating global climate change, the effects of nutrients/chemicals on the environment, fisheries, biological threats, and wetlands/woodlands protection.

STEM facilities built in the 1960s and 1970s aren’t up to hosting today’s science, and universities across the nation are wrestling with the question of how best to move forward. Building a new science facility isn’t always an option, due to funding limitations, insufficient swing space, or lack of administrative or political support. Fortunately, in-place transformation projects can often deliver a revitalized STEM environment for a significantly lower cost, if you begin with a solid roadmap, evaluate the building’s “bones,” and don’t underestimate your power to transform a building.