Higher Education

The University of Toronto opened the 20,550-metre Terence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (CCBR) in January of 2006. Designed by a joint venture of Toronto's architectsAlliance and Stuttgart, Germany-based Behnisch, Behnisch and Partner, the 12-story building contains wet and dry laboratories, research offices, three seminar rooms, a six-story garden and atrium, and mechanical operations on the seventh floor. 

The University of North Carolina has selected Turner Construction to build the 311,000-sf Core Laboratory Building at the N.C. Research Campus in Kannapolis. Financed by David Murdock and designed by Narmour Wright Creech Architecture, the five-story facility will be the first structure in a planned 350-acre biotech campus. Ground will be broken on the project in late February 2006 with completion expected in late 2007.

The University of California, San Diego will complete the expansion and renovation of the $16-million Biomedical Library in La Jolla in spring of 2006. McCarthy Building Companies is serving as construction manager and general contractor for the project, which entails the addition of 39,000 sf to the existing library, as well as renovation of the attached structure. Built in 1969 to serve 800 users, the library will nearly double in size so that services can be provided to more than 4,000 students, faculty, and visitors.

The University of California, Davis is constructing two veterinary medical facilities, both slated for completion by year-end 2006. Designed by SRG Partnership of Portland, Ore., the $77-million Veterinary Medical Building 3A features office, teaching, and clinical laboratory space, a research tower, overhead cranes for large animal transport, and a necropsy room with a digester. The 164,000-sf facility is being built to meet strict biosafety sterilization code requirements and vibration criteria.

The University of California, Davis (U.C. Davis) dedicated the $20-million Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology on January 30, 2006. Located in the Oak Park Research Building in Sacramento, Calif., the 40,000-sf facility will accommodate 100 researchers from U.C. Davis and other partner institutions including U.C. Berkeley, U.C. San Francisco, Stanford University, Mills College, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

The University of Maryland is constructing a new $69-million biosciences research facility on its College Park campus. The building will house research in genomic biology, neurosciences, plant sciences, and host-pathogen interactions. Accommodating the departments of biology, cell biology, genetics, and molecular biology departments for the College of Chemical and Life Sciences, the facility will feature a lecture hall with over 400 seats. The project began construction in September 2004 and is slated for completion in late summer of 2006.

The University of Central Florida celebrated the grand opening of its new Health Center in Orlando in January of 2006. Skanska USA Building and the joint venture architectural team of Mateu/HuntonBrady were involved in the construction and design of the facility. The total value of the project is estimated to be $88-million. The project included the construction of a new 48,725-foot, three-story health center that functions as the basic medical service provider for students, faculty, and staff at the university.

The University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) celebrated the beginning of its $15.2-million Life Science Building renovation on January 26, 2006. When it opens in fall of 2007, the 76,740-gsf facility will house space for the College of Pharmacy, Duluth on the first and second floors. Dubbed the Paddock Laboratories Pharmacy Education Center, it will consist of five classrooms, two large labs, study space, computer labs, and a student lounge.

Cornell University is planning to construct the $50-million William H. Gates Hall on its campus in Ithaca, N.Y. Funded in part by a $25-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the facility will accommodate education in computing and information science with a lecture hall, conference rooms, classrooms, laboratories, faculty offices, and student project spaces.

Westminster College is planning to construct a $30-million, 60,000-sf Science Center on its Salt Lake City campus. The three-story facility will house 14 undergraduate research labs, 14 regular labs, 2 seminar classrooms, 2 general classrooms, 1 informatics lab, faculty offices, and greenhouse spaces. Employing technologies including wireless computing, image capturing microscopes, modeling and miniaturization capabilities, and NMR capability, the building will be designed with flexible, open labs to foster interaction and enable reconfiguration.

The University of Kansas will begin construction in spring 2006 on a 45,000-sf expansion of the Structural Biology Center on its Lawrence campus. Enabling the center to house one of the nation's most extensive collections of pharmaceutical compounds (specifically those intended to treat cancer), the $20-million addition will also contain laboratories, offices, and conference rooms. As the third and final phase of the center, the project is expected to reach completion in mid-2007.

Yale University is planning to construct a new Biology Department laboratory facility on its New Haven, Conn., campus. Slated for completion within two years, the facility will connect to the existing Bass Building and will have four floors, each shared by seven different research entities. Designed to foster interaction and collaboration, the new biology building will unite all of the Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology research groups.

The University of California, Riverside is planning to construct a $65.5-million interdisciplinary science building to house programs in nanotechnology, materials science, and bioengineering. If approved by the University of California, the 134,000-sf facility will be comprised of two wings connected by a lobby. The four-story east wing will house lecture halls, computer labs, offices, and six classrooms, two of which can accommodate 300 people. The three-story west wing will house research laboratories.

Brandeis University will break ground in spring 2006 on the $154-million Carl J. Shapiro Science Center on its Waltham, Mass., campus. Designed by Payette Associates of Boston, the 175,000-sf project is the largest capital initiative in the University's history. The building will feature interdisciplinary research labs, a science commons, classrooms, seminar rooms, conference rooms, and a cafe.

The California Academy of Sciences is working with architect Renzo Piano to design a LEED ™ platinum facility in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.