The Genomics Building at the University of California, Riverside, is featured in the July issue of Lab Design News. The facility opened at the start of the 2009-10 academic year.

This high-intensity multidisciplinary facility, which advances the pioneering research of the University’s Institute of Integrative Genome Biology, concentrates on plant, insect, and microbial genomics.

The building serves more than 200 faculty, researchers, and graduate and post-doctoral students with a bioinformatics suite, research labs, and instrumentation facilities including insectaries and growth chambers, supporting the development of new products such as medicinal plants, stress-resistant crops, and ...[more]

Healthcare design leader Martha Rothman FAIA, LEED AP, has joined Shepley Bulfinch as a consulting principal.

In announcing the appointment, Shepley Bulfinch president Carole Wedge said, “The synergy of Martha’s experience and Shepley’s portfolio of health-care and institutional work couldn’t be stronger. This is a tremendous opportunity for us and for our clients.”

Martha brings more than 40 years of experience in the planning and design of healthcare and academic science facilities. She co-founded Rothman Partners in 1969, growing the firm to a staff of more than 60 by the mid-1990s. In 2005 the firm ...[more]

Shepley Bulfinch has begun schematic design for the new Health and Biomedical Science Center for the University of Houston’s College of Optometry.

The 167,600 s.f. state-of-the-art research and patient eye care center will include an ambulatory surgical center, laser center, specialized research labs, offices, seminar spaces, a new conference facility, and classrooms. It will be located adjacent to the J. Davis Armistead Building on the southern end of the University’s main campus. Housing an integrated clinical, teaching, and research program, the new building will dovetail into the existing facility in the Armistead ...[more]

CHARLESTON, SC – What’s more important than dedicating a new building? Putting it right to work.

On August 20, the Ashley Hall School did just that when it dedicated its new Library and Science Center in a ceremony that marked the beginning of the fall term. Shortly after the event, student began using the resources of the new library, which occupies the first two floors of the 24,500 square foot building, and classes convened in the third-floor science center.

The new center is linked to existing Jenkins Hall with a three-story glass box connector that houses faculty offices, a media lab, and a central stair.

Head of School Jill Muti ...[more]

NORTHBORO, MA – Saint-Gobain marked the completion of the expansion of the firm’s largest international research center in Northboro, Massachusetts, with a ceremony on July 30 attended by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and company executives from around the world.

The $15 million R&D facility, which broke ground a year ago, provides 60,000 square feet of new lab, office and meeting space for 200 scientists and engineers involved in cutting-edge research into building materials, plastics, ceramics, and abrasives, as well as the development of state-of-the-art technology to promote energy efficiency in buildings. The Northboro site is the largest of Saint-Gobain’s four worldwide research centers.

The facility, which is targeting LEED Gold certification, ...[more]

by Elise Woodward, Shepley Bulfinch; Marc Donohue, Johns Hopkins University

New Academic Buildings Put a Welcoming Face on Science
Shepley Bulfinch’s Elise Woodward discusses how the new Ho Science Center at Colgate and the Computational Science and Engineering Building at Johns Hopkins foster collaboration and make science visible on campus.

We approached the design of the Austin College Science Center facade as an opportunity to represent science with art. The “Solstice Wall” was envisioned as the building’s public expression of the inspiration and discovery that takes place within. The wall’s multi-colored panes of glass celebrate the way the sun’s light travels through space, following the cyclical patterns of days and seasons. Taking this concept further, we envisioned the solstice wall as a large scientific graph. We generated the mullion pattern by graphing sunspot activity over the past fifty years. Each vertical mullion represents a year, and the distance ...[more]