Latest Reports

George Washington University’s new Science and Engineering Hall (SEH) accommodates interdisciplinary collaboration with wet and dry research and teaching labs, and specialized spaces that include a microscopy center, a Class 100 nanofabrication facility, a three-story high-bay laboratory, electrical and machine shops, cold rooms, and cleanrooms. A multi-use auditorium and a media center can be used to host national science symposia and conferences.

Framingham State University, part of the University of Massachusetts system, has added 58,000 sf of new laboratory space to the Hemenway science complex in the middle of campus. Hemenway Laboratories, a five-story addition with a basement mechanical level, houses 16 teaching labs serving organic, inorganic, analytical, and physical chemistry; food science; and the biological sciences of human anatomy and physiology, microbiology, intro biology, comparative anatomy, ecology/ornithology, biomarine organisms, zoology, and cell biology/genetics.

The Shared Resource Center, which will provide new lab space for four existing core facilities at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Fla., is nearing completion with substantial buy-in from staff, despite a sometimes challenging consensus-building process, according to Moffitt’s Christine O’Connell, senior director of laboratory research operations and Susan Constable, manager of shared resources.

Decreases in energy and commodity prices have driven growth and pricing increases in the non-residential construction market and other sectors of the economy. Year-over-year non-residential construction growth is currently at 25 percent. Combined with a total volume growth of 17 percent in 2014, the sector is approaching a 52 percent rebound in spending from its most recent bottom. Price increases for 2015 are trending toward 8 percent, depending on location.

Motivating organizational leadership to address the growing limitations of aging science facilities can be a challenge for facility managers. Strategic assessment models like facility condition, revitalization rate, and asset age are powerful tools for stewarding facilities, but in advocating for renewal, which models are most likely to drive action? Officials at NASA considered four of the most common models before settling on the use of a simple “readiness” metric for measuring operational risk and developing a reasonable business case for new facility investment.