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[aandsdean]

At the risk of outing myself, my university is contemplating a new science building and we're looking for what realtors would call "comparables."  Our president and provost have asked us in A&S to develop a portfolio of recent science buildings (say, since 2002) from colleges and universities that are approximately similar to us. 

The parameters are:

Student population:  2,000-5,000 FTE, give or take a few
Endowment:  Less than $100 million, give or take--ours is around $80 million
(Privates are our primary target, but similar public schools with appropriate projects would be interesting too)

We're looking at cost and cost per square foot, fundraising strategies, LEED certification, and generally things that have worked or not in the design, construction, and early operational phases of the building's life.  We guess that the buildings we'll be looking at will have cost between $15 million and $35 million, depending on size, location, and year of construction (Katrina, for instance, drove up regional costs quite a bit more than 10% in the subsequent year).  Right now, the best example we have is the Trustees' Science Center at Drury University (Springfield, MO), which is about 65,000 square feet, we believe, and cost around $19.6 million when it opened in 2002.

I don't necessarily need particulars here--just pointers to schools that are in this ballpark.

THANK YOU very much for any leads...

[dr_strangelove]

Oberlin opened a new science center in 2002. See http://www.oberlin.edu/science/proj_history/overview.html for example.

[csguy]

I believe you can find some resources via PKAL: http://www.pkal.org/

[aandsdean]

I believe you can find some resources via PKAL: http://www.pkal.org/

Thanks Dr. Strangelove (I wish we were as rich and prestigious as Oberlin!) and csguy.  I should have thought of PKAL, since I went to their learning spaces conference at Puget Sound in March.

That's what happens when too much information goes into too little space!

[geonerd]

Hamilton College just opened a new science center that is absolutely gorgeous. Colgate University is just about to open its new science building this fall.

[scienceguy]

My graduate university opened a new building during my second year of grad school.

Let me share with you something that DOESN'T work:

Assigning lab space to faculty only after construction is complete.

That's how my department did it. It was a train wreck, and not just because of all of the jockeying for position that you'd normally expect.

The powers that be DRAMATICALLY underestimated the number of faculty that would require "custom" modifications to their lab space. Our lab (and many others), for instance, needed special power and water hookups for a high-dollar instrument. Some faculty that needed natural gas lines didn't have them.

The University had to kick in an additional $200,000 to make everyone's lab space "habitable." Had these changes been made during the design phase, they could have been implemented for practically nothing.

The Dean was understandably livid.

[kohelet]

Berry College, completed 2000, cool pendulum: http://www.berry.edu/vtour/html/main/science.html.

[aandsdean]

My graduate university opened a new building during my second year of grad school.

Let me share with you something that DOESN'T work:

Assigning lab space to faculty only after construction is complete.

That's how my department did it. It was a train wreck, and not just because of all of the jockeying for position that you'd normally expect.

The powers that be DRAMATICALLY underestimated the number of faculty that would require "custom" modifications to their lab space. Our lab (and many others), for instance, needed special power and water hookups for a high-dollar instrument. Some faculty that needed natural gas lines didn't have them.

The University had to kick in an additional $200,000 to make everyone's lab space "habitable." Had these changes been made during the design phase, they could have been implemented for practically nothing.

The Dean was understandably livid.

Sheer genius.

We've actually already done the part of the planning that assigns space--partly we're OK because we're not really a research institution and thus some of the more specialized hook-ups and so on aren't necessary, but partly it's also because we looked at a number of buildings before we started our "programming" phase.  The best buildings seemed to us to be ones that had a lot of versatility built into them--the very best was the engineering center at the local land-grant university, which was spectacular in this regard, with stub-ins for vent hoods, all sorts of electrical and plumbing connections, etc., all built into the shell of the building. 

One thing that really helped this building was "interstitial space," these 6' inter-floor spaces where the venting, electricity, network cabling, etc., was installed--open spaces and accessible easily for repurposing space.  This idea, though, is beyond what my kind of school can rationally do.  However, it did give us some good ideas.

Another nice one was hanging network cabling in bundles from hooks along the ceilings rather than running them through closed spaces.  This had a very cool look to it, though keeping them clean must be a problem.

[aandsdean]

Berry College, completed 2000, cool pendulum: http://www.berry.edu/vtour/html/main/science.html.

Thank you!  Another cool pendulum is at the new science building at the University of Puget Sound--this one was built by a faculty member!

[mssdoc]

Although it is not (at all) an ideal comparison, I've just finished spearheading the design of our new Art building.  Before anyone says "no, no, not the same", there are parts which are similar to a science building, especially the ventilation/HVAC systems (for kilns, fumes, etc., all of which are OSHA controlled), particulate matter collection systems (dust from our metal and wood studios), and electrical requirements (8 kilns at 50 amps each, halogen lighting, wood and metal equipments, plasma cutters, etc., multiplied by 5 studios, etc.).

My experience in working as a go-between for the architects and the faculty may or may not be useful here; if it is, you can PM me, if not, good luck on your new building process.

[aandsdean]

Although it is not (at all) an ideal comparison, I've just finished spearheading the design of our new Art building.  Before anyone says "no, no, not the same", there are parts which are similar to a science building, especially the ventilation/HVAC systems (for kilns, fumes, etc., all of which are OSHA controlled), particulate matter collection systems (dust from our metal and wood studios), and electrical requirements (8 kilns at 50 amps each, halogen lighting, wood and metal equipments, plasma cutters, etc., multiplied by 5 studios, etc.).

My experience in working as a go-between for the architects and the faculty may or may not be useful here; if it is, you can PM me, if not, good luck on your new building process.

Actually, I recognize these similarities in material safety, etc.  In fact, also, some lighting issues are pretty similar.

We had a wonderful meeting with our architects lately where we got a new concept that fits into some other things that are going on on campus.  It's very exciting.  Now, if I could just get someone to write me a check for $30 million I'd be really happy.

I think it would be interesting, MSS, to hear about your programming challenges.  Scienceguy's post tells a lot about what can happen when you don't do it right.  If you can discuss without too much outing of yourself, what have your challenges been with faculty?  Excess desire?  Problems with buy-in?  Aesthetic objections?  Hmmm.

Thanks, aands

[mssdoc]

I imagine we had similar issues, especially with the programming problems.  We knocked down the old building, starting from scratch, and added a great deal of space. We essentially doubled the size of the building, and thus, doubled the size we could assign to individual studios.  You can imagine the vulture mentaility--"My studio is too small, I want a bigger one"; "Program A got a bigger space than I did", "Program B got more money for equipment." yadda yadda yadda.  Not only did we have interdepartmental sniping, but inter-media sniping about what works best, where the sinks should be, how big the windows need to be.....aaargh.  The faculty even got involved with the selection of plants for the landscaping.  Unfortunately, the architects and powers that be on campus made one request:  the Department speak with one voice. Uh, yeah, right.

We essentially did this: 

1) gave every studio 20% more space than they have now. It's fair, it works for our programming, and it shut everyone up. 

2) Had open meetings way in advance for all faculty, adjunct and TT, staff and even students to provide input about what they liked about the old building, what they wanted, etc.  These were not with the architect.  We then winnowed out the insanity (a 7000 sq ft Ceramics Lab with a new $60,000 kiln?), presented new ideas to the faculty and staff, and basically agreed on a list of priorities (things we couldn't live without, things we'd like, things we'd love).

3) Set deadlines for comment.  Our design phase went from December of last year to May.  I continually got updated plans from our architects and displayed them in our conference room.  That way everyone walking through our office could stop, peruse, and comment. (As an aside, I was astonished at how few artists knew how to read plans.  Huh.) Eventually, I just set a "no more comments, so live with this building" date, and we stopped taking input.

We had some issues with aesthetics (the building is a bit Post-Modern, and some of our staff are really, really, not into that). We also have folks who wanted to "suggest" designs to the architect.   But in general, we're happy  with the end result; we start moving out next semester.

I will warn you, the biggest problem we had was with Mechanical systems.  Our architects shop this out to a Mechanical Engineering firm, and we have very, very, discipline specific needs for ventilation, particulate removal, and HVAC.  We had major conversations with the ME guys, since they did not seem to "get" it, and were apparently planning on installing the generic HVAC.  I finally went to another on-line community dealing with my disciplines, asked what other people did, and got a response from architects/artists who offered their consultation services gratis (!).

BTW, the landscape architect?  Took all our suggestions.  No more English Ivy.  Yippee!

[aandsdean]

I imagine we had similar issues, especially with the programming problems.  We knocked down the old building, starting from scratch, and added a great deal of space. We essentially doubled the size of the building, and thus, doubled the size we could assign to individual studios.  You can imagine the vulture mentaility--"My studio is too small, I want a bigger one"; "Program A got a bigger space than I did", "Program B got more money for equipment." yadda yadda yadda.  Not only did we have interdepartmental sniping, but inter-media sniping about what works best, where the sinks should be, how big the windows need to be.....aaargh.  The faculty even got involved with the selection of plants for the landscaping.  Unfortunately, the architects and powers that be on campus made one request:  the Department speak with one voice. Uh, yeah, right.

We essentially did this: 

1) gave every studio 20% more space than they have now. It's fair, it works for our programming, and it shut everyone up. 

2) Had open meetings way in advance for all faculty, adjunct and TT, staff and even students to provide input about what they liked about the old building, what they wanted, etc.  These were not with the architect.  We then winnowed out the insanity (a 7000 sq ft Ceramics Lab with a new $60,000 kiln?), presented new ideas to the faculty and staff, and basically agreed on a list of priorities (things we couldn't live without, things we'd like, things we'd love).

3) Set deadlines for comment.  Our design phase went from December of last year to May.  I continually got updated plans from our architects and displayed them in our conference room.  That way everyone walking through our office could stop, peruse, and comment. (As an aside, I was astonished at how few artists knew how to read plans.  Huh.) Eventually, I just set a "no more comments, so live with this building" date, and we stopped taking input.

We had some issues with aesthetics (the building is a bit Post-Modern, and some of our staff are really, really, not into that). We also have folks who wanted to "suggest" designs to the architect.   But in general, we're happy  with the end result; we start moving out next semester.

I will warn you, the biggest problem we had was with Mechanical systems.  Our architects shop this out to a Mechanical Engineering firm, and we have very, very, discipline specific needs for ventilation, particulate removal, and HVAC.  We had major conversations with the ME guys, since they did not seem to "get" it, and were apparently planning on installing the generic HVAC.  I finally went to another on-line community dealing with my disciplines, asked what other people did, and got a response from architects/artists who offered their consultation services gratis (!).

BTW, the landscape architect?  Took all our suggestions.  No more English Ivy.  Yippee!

Thank you--this is very helpful.  We actually have had relative peace so far, but that's because (I think) our faculty don't believe it's going to happen, though I'm quite sure it will. 

Our current facility is so lousy that tents in the parking lot with holes in the roof for ventilation would probably be better, so everyone is delirious with potentialities!

Our architect has engineers in-house and has done a lot of academic science and engineering, and so is well up on this kind of thing, which is one of the reasons we picked them--looked at buildings (in the flesh and photos) of about 5 architects and got a good idea of what they could do.  So far, so good.

My wife is an artist who has used highly toxic materials in the past and who teaches with them some (printing, dyeing, etc.), and so I have some direct experience with what happens when you don't have the right kinds of ventilation, sinks, etc. (like tossing lye down the sink, for instance).  I feel your pain.

It sounds like your project is really great, though!  How's construction?

[mssdoc]

We, too, had the Dale Gribble "It'll never happen" naysayers in our world, mainly because we'd been promised this building since, well, forever.  When we hired the architects (oddly, the Department had no input on them), suddenly everyone was astonished.  Our architects do mostly academic performing arts/theatre buildings, though their firm has done academic art buildings in the Midwest, so they did have resources on which to fall back.

One truly irritating thing, however, has been the timeline pipeline.  Our campus has been undergoing some major renovations for the last five years, and the renovation project immediately prior to ours hit an asbestos roadblock.  Now we're a year behind schedule--we should have been out and in temporaries this semester.  Our move has been pushed back to next August--which means we'll be moving kilns in December of '08, if we're lucky.

What I thought was really strange about the delay, though, was the fact that it did not give us more time for design development.  We held fast to the deadline imposed by our facilities planners, even though we now have an extra year.

Our building will be quite remarkable, really.  The architects asked the faculty if we wanted a "building that was art, a building where art was made, or both."  We wen't for the "both" option, and got a building that really pushes the envelop in terms of design (Rhomboid-shaped rooms; intentionally non-plumb exterior walls, cladding in Corten).  I suppose we'll have to wait and see whether the functionality is compromised by the design.

[mended_drum]

Wofford College put in a new science building and remodeled parts of the old one recently.  It's a bit smaller than what you describe, but you might contact their new dean.