Higher Education

The University of Texas is planning its new $22-million Department of Biomedical Engineering facility on its main Austin campus. The four-story, 80,000-sf facility will provide classroom and research space for three areas of biomedical engineering: imaging, computing, and molecular and cellular bioengineering. Office and classroom space will occupy 40,000 sf;  laboratories will occupy the remaining 40,000-sf. The research facilities will house dry labs for computer and instrumentation studies as well as wet lab space. Occupancy is expected in 2005.

Ground was broken on October 10, 2003 on Charleston Southern University’s new $11.3 million science building, an undergraduate teaching and multi-disciplinary research laboratory facility. The two-story, 54,000-sf building is scheduled for occupancy in January 2005. Lord, Aeck & Sargent of Atlanta is the project architect and programmer. The firm has also been commissioned to renovate CSU’s Jones/Ashby Hall, which currently houses biology and chemistry labs.

Austin Community College (ACC) dedicated its new $19 million Health Science Building on October 4, 2003. Sited on the college's Eastview campus, the 82,000-sf facility houses a dental hygiene clinic, teaching space for the dental technology program, a nursing laboratory, and classrooms. The $11 million second expansion phase will comprise 60,000 sf and is slated for completion by year-end 2004, enabling the consolidation of the entire ACC Health Science program at the Eastview campus.

San Jose State University has opened its newly updated Microelectronics Process Engineering Fabrication Facility at the College of Engineering. The 3,400-sf fab and academic program were made possible by donations from corporate sponsors including Intel Corp. and Applied Materials Inc., as well as funding from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the National Science Foundation.

M+W Zander was presented with a Distinguished Building Award at AIA Chicago’s Designight on September 19, 2003 in recognition of the firm’s design for the New Administration Building and Underground Parking Facility for McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. The 42,000-gsf building and 60,000-gsf parking garage complex was completed in May 2003, for which M+W Zander provided master site planning, programming, architectural design, and construction administration services.

The Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University recently celebrated the “topping off” of its newest educational and research facility, the Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine, and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS). The state-of-the-art facility features undergraduate teaching and project labs, research facilities and a variety of spaces where faculty and students can both formally meet and informally interact. Zimmer Gunsul Frasca designed the building, and Skanska USA Building is serving as manager of construction.

The University of Pittsburgh is developing a regional biocontainment laboratory with $18-million in funding from the National Institutes of Heath’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The laboratory, one of nine regional biocontainment labs funded by NIH, will be sited in the Biomedical Science Tower 3 in Oakland, Pa. Additionally, a bioterrorism research center established by Johns Hopkins University will move most of its operations to Oakland in fall of 2003 to become the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston is creating one of the first national biocontainment laboratories with a $120 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The University will contribute the remaining $40 million to build the $160-million, 170,000-sf project. The laboratory will house flexible, high-level biocontainment facilities, clinical facilities, and research support space.

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center will build a Regional Biocontainment Laboratory in Memphis, Tenn. Funded by $5 million from the University and a $14 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the facility will accommodate research on bioterrorism and biotechnology and will be located adjacent to UT’s existing vivarium.

The Strategic Partnership for Research in Nanotechnology has been granted $10 million in funding from the Senate to establish a network of nanotechnology research centers. The Strategic Partnership for Research in Nanotechnology is a consortium comprised of The University of Texas at Dallas, The University of Texas at Arlington, The University of Texas at Austin, and Rice University.

Harvard Medical School (HMS) has completed the New Research Building (NRB) at its Cambridge, Mass., campus. Designed by ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge, the 525,000-sf building is the largest expansion of the medical campus in nearly a century. The NRB houses approximately 800 researchers and staff from various disciplines that will work to pursue treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases.

Butler County Community College in El Dorado, Kan. , will open a newly renovated 62,000-sf facility in October 2003. Named the 5000 Building, the facility will accommodate ten general education classrooms, a science classroom and lab, a computer lab, a bookstore, an office, and commons space.

Saint Vincent College is building a new facility to house the Alex G. McKenna School of Business, Economics and Government on its campus in Latrobe, Pa. Designed by Pittsburgh-based architectural firm Tasso Katselas Associates, the $3.2 million, 20,000-sf project involves the renovation of four floors in Aurelius Hall. Completion is expected in spring of 2005.

Virginia Tech University is working with Emerson’s Network Power unit to develop a new state-of-the-art supercomputing facility. Emerson, based in St. Louis, designed and installed a cooling system for the supercomputer that does not occupy needed floor space. The supercomputer consists of a cluster of 1,100 personal computers.

Arizona State University East is building a new 27,000-sf student union on its Mesa campus. Housing student life programs, multipurpose meeting space, study areas, dining facilities, workspace for student organizations, a campus bookstore, and a game room, the building is slated for completion in August 2004. The $5.4 million project was designed by Gould Evans Associates of Phoenix. The general contractor is Turner Construction of Phoenix.