Sustainability

The 350,000-sf Conventus facility is under construction in Buffalo, N.Y. The seven-story building will provide clinical, office, and research space and is strategically located on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus to support collaboration with academic and industry partners. The project team includes Kideney Architects, construction manager LPCiminelli, Siracuse Engineers, M/E Engineering, and C&S Companies. LEED Gold sustainable design certification will be sought for the facility.

Lahey Hospital is planning a $60 million expansion of its academic medical center campus in Burlington, Mass. Designed by FreemanWhite and built by Suffolk Construction, the 190,000-sf facility will provide a new emergency department as well as mechanical areas and shell space to accommodate future growth. The project will be delivered using Model-Based Estimating and Lean construction methodologies. LEED Silver sustainable design certification will be sought for the facility, which is slated for completion in spring of 2017.

With careful planning, institution-wide involvement, and innovative thinking, sustainability goals for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) facilities can be met by renovating and remodeling instead of more expensive new construction, without compromising the educational mission.

The six-story, 50,000-sf Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE) occupies a renovated 1913 mercantile building in South Boston. The new research and office facility, with its brick walls and exposed steel and timber framing, showcases ways to incorporate advanced research and cutting-edge technology into an existing building while maintaining its historic character. The renovation incorporates all new energy-efficient building systems, with a focus on experimental systems that can be tested in a real-world application. 

Georgia Gwinnett College opened the $30 million Allied Health and Science Building in August of 2014 in Lawrenceville. The three-story, 91,000-sf interdisciplinary facility provides laboratories for biology, chemistry, physics, and anatomy and physiology, as well as housing classrooms, faculty offices, and study areas. The second floor of the building accommodates the nursing program and includes a technology-rich classroom for team-based learning and a simulation training center with a 14-bed clinical practice lab.

Verne Global's data center has performed more efficiently than initial expectations, thanks to the capacity and cost savings resulting from a free cooling system based on technology from Eaton-Williams, an affiliate of CES Group, LLC. Located in Keflavik, Iceland, the facility is the world’s first zero-carbon, 100% renewably powered data center. The center utilizes an innovative free cooling system that takes advantage of the moderate Icelandic climate and taps into the island’s vast geothermal and hydroelectric resources.

St. John Fisher College broke ground on the $14 million Integrated Science and Health Sciences Building in July of 2014 in Rochester, N.Y. The collaborative 31,000-sf facility will provide two multipurpose labs, two 100-seat flexible classrooms, science teaching labs, faculty offices, and interdisciplinary research space. The building will also include core facilities for tissue culture, nanobiology, and aquatic research. LEED sustainable design certification will be sought for the project and occupancy is slated for fall of 2015.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory celebrated the opening of the Facility for Low-Energy Experiments on Buildings (FLEXLAB) in July of 2014. Designed to be the world’s most advanced building efficiency facility, the lab will support collaborative research with companies and utilities to reduce energy use by testing, evaluating, and deploying energy technologies as integrated systems under real-world conditions.

Bayer CropScience will begin construction in late summer of 2014 on a $29.6 million expansion of its seed research headquarters in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The project includes extensive infrastructure development and construction of a 29,500-sf greenhouse to support the study of nematode traits, plant diseases, and insects.

The American Institute of Architects has announced the release of seven updated design-build contract documents. Building on the core strengths of the 2004 edition documents while enhancing the early interaction between the owner and the design-builder, the 2014 Design-Build documents call for clearly defined and mandated owner’s criteria for the project and require the submission of a preliminary design by the design-builder.

The University of Bristol has completed construction on its $92 million Life Sciences building in the United Kingdom. Designed by Sheppard Robson, the 145,000-sf facility provides the School of Biological Sciences with teaching labs, seminar rooms, and offices arranged around a central atrium. A five-story research wing accommodates cleanrooms, imaging suites, labs, acoustic chambers, and greenhouse space. BREAM Excellent sustainable design certification will be sought for the project, which features a 41-ft tall living wall.

Rutgers University broke ground in June of 2014 on the $115 million Chemistry and Chemical Biology Building. Designed by Flad Architects, the four-story, 145,000-sf facility is sited on the Busch campus in Piscataway, N.J., and will support multidisciplinary collaboration with integrated teaching, research, and support space. Core facilities will include a microscopy suite, a class 100 chemistry cleanroom, and labs for optical spectroscopy, NMR spectroscopy, and X-ray crystallography.

The Center for Sustainable Landscapes (CSL), Phase III of a major expansion to Pittsburgh’s Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, is on course to be the first building in the world awarded certification as both LEED Platinum and a Four-Stars Sustainable Site (SITES), both of which were obtained in 2013, as well as Living Building Certification. It was certified as a Net-Zero Energy Building in 2014.

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital will begin construction in summer of 2014 on a $40 million research and teaching building in Liverpool, U.K. Designed by Hopkins Architects, the 75,000-sf, three-story project will provide research and teaching labs, offices, meeting rooms, lecture halls, breakout spaces, and a library. Comprising two wings adjoining a curved central atrium, the flexible facility will feature a corridor-free interior to encourage interaction and collaboration.

Bay Path College is building the Center for Graduate Studies in Health Sciences in East Longmeadow, Mass. The $16 million facility will provide classrooms, laboratories, training rooms, faculty offices, conference rooms, and administrative space. Construction began on the two-story, 56,000-sf facility in November of 2013 and completion is expected in early 2015.