GKN Aerospace is planning to build the £32 million Global Technology Centre in Bristol in the United Kingdom. The 108,000-sf facility will accommodate 300 engineers engaged in collaborative research on additive manufacturing, advanced composites, and next-generation aircraft production. The public-private project is supported by £15 million in government funding and is slated for occupancy in 2020.
Opened in August 2017, the Engineering Education and Research Center (EERC) at UT Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering is a leading-edge STEM environment with open and flexible space for active learning, hands-on student projects, and research, as well as maker space for prototyping marketable products that solve real-world problems. By maximizing transparency, the building’s designers supported the Cockrell School’s goal of fostering collaboration and interdisciplinary research. The building has also become an iconic campus gateway that puts the process of engineering on display and offers public access to its café, study spaces, and meeting rooms.
Ryerson University opened the Centre for Urban Innovation in January of 2018 in Toronto. Designed by Moriyama & Teshima and ERA Architects, the CAD$46 million project included the renovation and expansion of an existing structure to create a 40,000-sf facility providing wet and dry research labs, fabrication suites, a maker space, and offices for business incubation and commercialization.
Cranfield University began construction in January of 2019 on the Digital Aviation Research and Technology Centre (DARTeC) in Cranfield in the United Kingdom. Designed by Burrell Foley Fischer, the £65 million project will provide technology-rich laboratory spaces adjoining a live aerodrome with a hangar, a 737-400 aircraft, an intelligent movement area, and a remote air traffic control center with next-generation radar systems.
East Carolina University opened the $122 million Main Campus Student Center in January of 2019 in Greenville, N.C. Designed by Perkins+Will, the 220,000-sf facility features a 10,000-sf commons, a 250-seat black box theater, a divisible 14,000-sf ballroom, and multiple dining options. The center also offers a game room, student lounges, meeting spaces, study areas, retail amenities, a 724-space parking garage, and a massive outdoor digital display for communal viewing of sporting and media events.
Eastern Michigan University opened the renovated and expanded Strong Hall in Ypsilanti in January of 2019. Designed by Stantec, the $40 million project creates flexible teaching and research labs, classrooms, and lecture halls for STEM education including programs in geology, geography, physics, and astronomy. Featuring internal glass walls to put science on display, the 80,700-sf facility provides an atrium, a 200-seat auditorium, a maker space, a machine shop, a laser lab, faculty offices, conference rooms, and huddle spaces.
University of Michigan transformed Weiser Hall—a 1960s brick tower with floor after floor of double-loaded, concrete block corridors—into a dynamic and flexible “center of centers” that brings together international and interdisciplinary institutes and centers so they can share space, services, and ideas. The provost’s charge was to renovate the building to create the “academic workplace of the future.” With the help of brightspot strategy and Diamond Schmitt architects, the team accomplished that mission with a seven-step formula that yielded impressive results, including an average overall productivity savings of 4.26 hours per person per week, the equivalent of every unit being able to grow its staff by 10 percent at no cost.
The University of Cambridge broke ground in January of 2019 on a £300 million expansion of the Cavendish Laboratory in the United Kingdom. The project includes construction of the 355,000-sf Ray Dolby Centre to provide the department of physics with additional laboratories, cleanrooms, lecture halls, offices, and workshops. A basement level with advanced vibration and EMI mitigation technologies will accommodate sensitive instrumentation.
Capital One opened the Tech Incubator at the University of Maryland in College Park in November of 2018. Supporting collaborative research in data science, machine learning, and AI, the flexible 7,500-sf facility features 32 sit-to-stand desks in an open office area that can be converted into a meeting venue. Located in UMD’s Discovery District in a mixed-use development called the Diamondback Garage, the facility provides laboratories, a conference room, a lounge, a kitchen, and a game room.
Montana State University opened the $53 million Norm Asbjornson Hall in January of 2019 in Bozeman. Designed by ZGF Architects and A&E Architects with Research Facilities Design (RFD) as laboratory design consultant, the three-story, 110,000-sf facility houses both the College of Engineering and the Honors College. LEED Gold sustainable design certification will be sought for the project, which provides 17 teaching labs, 10 classrooms, offices, and a presentation hall.
The University of Sheffield will begin construction in early 2019 on a £65 million social sciences building in the United Kingdom. Designed by HLM Architects, the four-story, 178,000-sf facility will accommodate 13 departments and multiple research institutes in an innovative working environment. The interdisciplinary building will provide a central atrium, collaborative lecture halls, seminar rooms, social spaces, study areas, computer rooms, a research hub, and a café.
Georgia Southern University opened the $23 million Health Professions Academic Building in January of 2019 in Statesboro, Ga. Designed by The S/L/A/M Collaborative to accommodate team-based learning, the technology-rich facility provides advanced simulation training suites, clinical skills labs, and instructional spaces. Illuminated by abundant natural light, the sustainably designed structure features the 8,193-sf St. Joseph’s/Candler Nursing Suite and the Memorial Health Active Learning Studio.
More and more, workers aren’t going to an office and sitting at the same desk Monday through Friday. Today’s architects, builders, institutions, and designers need to plan for a future in which workers are nomads—moving from one place to another within a building or campus, or showing up in the office just one or two days a week. These nomadic workers are often mobile by choice, taking advantage of the flexibility that technology has enabled for academic staff, knowledge workers, and even healthcare employees.
Providence College’s 37,000-sf addition to the 70,000-sf Albertus Magnus Hall encourages collaboration among students and faculty within a multi-disciplinary environment for the departments of Biology, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Psychology, and Engineering-Physics-Systems. The addition creates a new front entrance for the teaching and research facility, which is Phase 1B of a $50 million multi-phased project involving three adjoining buildings: Albertus Magnus, Sowa and Hickey halls.
Santa Rosa Junior College is planning to build the $75 million Lindley Center for STEM Education in Santa Rosa, Calif. Designed by SmithGroup and Strata AP with Research Facilities Design (RFD) as laboratory design consultant, the 92,000-sf interdisciplinary facility will provide leading-edge teaching labs and classrooms to accommodate programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Groundbreaking is slated for spring of 2020 with completion expected in 2022.
