Research and Development

Georgia Tech opened the $375 million Coda building in May of 2019. Located at Technology Square in Atlanta, the 755,000-sf innovation hub provides interdisciplinary research space for Georgia Tech's data analytics and computational science programs, as well as offering leasable offices and labs for industry partners. The 21-story tower features a central piazza with a spiral staircase leading to the Collaboration Core, a series of six three-story vertical atriums that join the wings of the building.

WuXi Biologics began construction in May of 2019 on a 1.3 million-sf integrated manufacturing center in Chengdu, China. Meeting the criteria of both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency's GMP guidelines, the biologics hub will include both drug development and commercial manufacturing facilities. Offering an initial bioreactor capacity of 48,000 liters, the project is WuXi's twelfth drug substance manufacturing plant and will use the company's open-access and proprietary platforms.

Franklin College dedicated its new Science Center in May of 2019 in Franklin, Ind. Designed by BSA LifeStructures, the $17 million renovation and expansion project transformed the existing 30,000-sf science building into a two-story, 51,000-sf facility featuring flexible learning spaces that combine laboratory and lecture functions.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office announced up to $33.5 million in funding in May of 2019 for early-stage research and development of advanced building construction techniques to reduce energy costs. The Advanced Building Construction with Energy-Efficient Technologies & Practices (ABC) initiative aims to develop deep energy retrofit and new construction technologies that holistically tackle a combination of envelope, heating, cooling, water heating, and ventilation issues.

The Rosalind Franklin Institute broke ground in May of 2019 on a £40 million campus hub in Harwell in the United Kingdom. The four-story, 58,000-sf facility will provide the government-funded research center with labs, instrumentation suites, offices, and interaction spaces to support leading-edge translational medicine programs.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory broke ground on the $95 million Translational Research Capability facility in May of 2019 in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Located on a brownfield site on ORNL’s main campus, the three-story, 100,000-sf building will provide laboratory and office space to support research programs in computing, quantum information, and materials science.

The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) celebrated the opening of the Cobb County Research Facility South in May of 2019. Located in Smyrna on land purchased from Lockheed Martin, the 350,000-sf campus houses the Aerospace, Transportation, and Advanced Systems Laboratory (ATAS); the Cybersecurity, Information Protection, and Hardware Evaluation Research Laboratory (CIPHER); the Electronic Systems Laboratory (ELSYS); and the Sensors and Electromagnetic Applications Laboratory (SEAL).

Ohio State University broke ground in May of 2019 on the $33.5 million Wooster Science Building. Designed by Hasenstab Architects, the 60,000-sf facility will provide the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences with undergraduate chemistry teaching labs, multifunctional classrooms, an entomology research unit, an insect zoo, and a café. The project is located on the school's Wooster campus and will accommodate programs for the Agricultural Technical Institute (ATI) and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC).

Universities across the country are looking to assemble students and faculty from different research interests in spaces that promote cross-disciplinary collaboration. Successful designs call for exteriors that beckon the entire campus community and flexible interior features that enable the institution to refresh the mix of researchers and projects at regular intervals. Such projects also call for encouraging a campus-wide sense of ownership of the building while establishing a space application review process. Opened in January 2017, the University of Idaho’s $52 million Integrated Research and Innovation Center (IRIC) works to accomplish these goals through building design choices and ongoing space management decisions. Randy Benedict, design leader and principal at NBBJ, and Russell McClanahan, IRIC facility manager, describe how those two activities—design and building management—work to make the IRIC a hub of interdisciplinary interactions at the campus in Moscow, Idaho.

Bayer broke ground in May of 2019 on the $150 million Cell Culture Technology Center in Berkeley, Calif. The 40,000-sf biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility will produce advanced therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and other diseases, enabling the company to expand its biologics development and launch capabilities. Fluor Corporation is providing a single point of responsibility for engineering, procurement, construction management, commissioning, qualification, validation, and integration of the project.

Colorado State University opened the $65 million C. Wayne McIlwraith Translational Medicine Institute in May of 2019 in Fort Collins. The 130,000-sf facility provides the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences with equine and small animal surgery suites, flexible research labs, imaging rooms, instructional spaces, a surgical skills training lab, executive offices, and a 200-seat lecture hall.

Virginia Commonwealth University is planning to build a $121 million facility in Richmond to accommodate programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Located on the Monroe Park Campus, the six-story, 168,000-sf teaching and research facility will provide wet and dry labs for programs in chemistry, biology, physics, psychology and kinesiology.

Novo Nordisk's global production will be entirely powered by renewable energy by early 2020, with a ten-year goal of achieving zero carbon emissions from operations and transportation. The pharmaceutical company has made a $70 million investment in a 105-megawatt-dc solar energy installation to be built in Pender County, North Carolina.

The founding institutions of TMC3 have announced a new project team for their planned 37-acre translational research campus in Houston.

West Chester University broke ground in April of 2019 on the Sciences & Engineering Center in West Chester, Pa. The three-story structure will provide teaching labs, classrooms, offices, and study areas to support programs in biomedical engineering, health sciences, and physics. The facility will feature an immersive learning center with advanced simulation training technologies for courses in nursing, allied health, psychology, athletic training, and social work, as well as offering space for student services.