Higher Education

The United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) has created 15 Academic Health Science Networks to promote translational research and the application of best practices in healthcare. The 15 AHSNs are: East Midlands; Eastern; Greater Manchester; North East and North Cumbria; North West Coast; Imperial College Health Partners; Oxford; South London; South West Peninsula; Kent, Surrey and Sussex; UCL Partners; Wessex; West Midlands; West of England; and Yorkshire and Humber.

New analytical planning tools and HVAC technologies can dramatically ease the transformation of existing academic buildings into high-performance state-of-the-art science labs. Along with advances in quantitative methods to assess the potential of existing space, innovations in HVAC strategy offer compact and energy-efficient solutions that are well suited to campus structures erected for different purposes decades ago.

The six-story, 578,000-sf Edmonton Clinic Health Academy (ECHA) at the University of Alberta, Canada, brings together 800 faculty and staff from 12 departments, and 6,000 students from the Health Sciences Department, who focus on population health, computational research, and translational research.

Sheffield University is planning to construct the $123 million New Engineering Building in the United Kingdom. Construction will begin in 2013 on the 200,000-sf facility and completion is expected in 2016. Designed by RMJM, the six-story building will provide dedicated engineering facilities and flexible learning spaces including lecture halls, large and small teaching rooms, and independent study spaces.

Adelphi University is planning to build the 99,691-sf Nexus Building and Welcome Center in Garden City, N.Y. The three-story, sustainably designed facility will include classrooms and simulation labs for the School of Nursing and Public Health as well as administrative offices. The design architect for the project is Ballinger Associates. The duration of construction will be 21 months with completion expected in September of 2015.

Central Michigan University is planning to construct a $46.5 million campus in Saginaw for the College of Medicine. The project will be built in two phases and the cost of phase one is estimated at $25 million. The College of Medicine facilities will be created in partnership with Covenant HealthCare and St. Mary's of Michigan and will accommodate 400 students.

Research space at academic institutions increased 3.5 percent from fiscal year 2009 to 2011, one of the lowest two-year growth rates since a peak in 2001-03, according to the National Science Foundation's (NSF) most recent Survey of Science and Engineering Research Facilities. In that time period—the most recent data the NSF has—institutions planned fewer projects, and fewer projects came to fruition, an indicator that this "slow growth" trend will continue. The main growth area continued to be the biological and biomedical sciences.

Wake Forest University will complete a $53.5 million facility for the School of Business in the summer of 2013. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, the three-story, 120,000-sf Farrell Hall will provide 18 technology-rich, flexible classrooms; an information commons; integrated faculty office clusters; and a 375-seat auditoium. The collaborative facility was designed to promote student-faculty engagement and features 8,000 sf of flexible interaction space. Ground was broken on the project in April of 2011.

Keyano College is building the $22 million Oilsands Power & Process Engineering Lab in Fort McMurray, Alberta. The 16,469-sf facility will feature a fully functional cogeneration plant with steam turbine generators, boilers, and condensers, as well as classrooms, mechanical shops, and support offices. The project team includes architectural firm Dialog, general contractor PCL Construction, and engineering consultant WorleyParsons.

University Hospital Aintree began construction in May of 2013 on a $63 million expansion of the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust campus in Liverpool. The 25,000-sf Project Arizona building will incorporate Passivhaus sustainable design principles to deliver a highly insulated facility for maximum energy efficiency. The expansion will provide inpatient and outpatient care facilities, a neuro-rehabilitation center, and a clinical research facility.

Coppin State University broke ground on the $80 million Science and Technology Center in Baltimore in May of 2013. The four-story, 150,333-sf facility will feature collaborative teaching and research labs, classrooms, a 100-seat lecture hall, and a computing suite.

Loyola Marymount University broke ground on a $110 million life sciences building in Los Angeles in May of 2013. Supporting programs in biology, chemistry, and natural sciences, the 103,500-sf interdisciplinary facility will provide 16,000 sf of research space, 34 teaching labs, classrooms, faculty offices, study lounges, and a 292-seat auditorium.  The project was designed by CO Architects with Research Facilities Design (RFD) as laboratory design consultant.

The Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions (C-NES) Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology integrates three distinct types of space to create a research environment that offers optimal flexibility. The 42,000-sf building is designed to facilitate research programs of today and tomorrow by featuring not only labs and offices, but also high-bay spaces capable of housing large or heavy pieces of equipment and mid-bay spaces where the equipment is usually less than 10 feet tall.

The three-story, 42,000-gsf integrated teaching and research facility includes state-of-the-art laboratories—supporting biochemistry, environmental science and engineering, computer engineering, and acoustical engineering—as well as general-use classrooms. The central organizing atrium with its popular Science Café is both a thoroughfare and destination. Labs and classrooms open off the atrium, with progressively quieter zones for study and faculty office suites extending away from the atrium.

Royal Liverpool University Hospital is planning to construct a $511 million replacement facility in the United Kingdom. The public-private partnership project will be built by Carillion. Construction will begin in early 2014 with completion expected in 2017. Carillion will also provide support services for the sustainably designed hospital, which will accommodate 646 inpatient beds, a 40-bed critical care unit, 18 surgical suites, and an expanded emergency department.