SCUPer Projects in New England Featured in Monthly High-Profile

Plesae scroll down to your SCUP Link, below this notice about SCUP–45.

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

The April 2010 issue of Monthly High-Profile features SCUP and projects planned and designed by many SCUPers. You can either view an online version or download a PDF here. High-Profile Monthly is a facility development trade publication, featuring construction activities in New England. The SCUP section runs from page 20 through page 25. Projects noted include the Meckert-Tracy Science Building at Stonehill College; renovations at Marblehead's Village School; a green student housing project, Mara Village, at Fitchburg State College; the American University for Medical Studies in Kuwait; and science and engineering facilities at Trinity University.

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SCUP's Planning Institute: Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers while you engage in one of the three SCUP Planning Institute Steps. In addition to being offered on demand, on campuses to teams of campus leaders, the institute steps are also offered to all professionals at varying times and venues. Currently scheduled are:

• May 22–23, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• July 10, Minneapolis, MN - Step I (in conjunction with SCUP–45)
• October 2, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• January 21–22, Tempe, AZ - Step II and Step III

Soon You Can "Print" a Building?

This article is long on personality but has good looks at this evolving technology. "In a small shed on an industrial park near Pisa is a machine that can print buildings. The machine itself looks like a prototype for the automotive industry. Four columns independently support a frame with a single armature on it. Driven by CAD software installed on a dust-covered computer terminal, the armature moves just millimetres above a pile of sand, expressing a magnesium-based solution from hundreds of nozzles on its lower side. It makes four passes. The layer dries and Enrico Dini recalibrates the armature frame. The system deposits the sand and then inorganic binding ink. The exercise is repeated. The millennia-long process of laying down sedimentary rock is accelerated into a day. A building emerges. This machine could be used to construct anything. Dini wants to build a cathedral with it. Or houses on the moon."

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA - "Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats"
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

Not a Library: Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center at University of Nevada, Reno

The new 295ksf building was conceived as a knowledge facility for the 21st century and is seen as "the beginning manifestation to substantial curricular change on campus, and a likely sea change in learning, I believe, in general." The former library had more than 1M books. The new facility has room for 3M, but is never expected to use the space for that purpose. UNR has several SCUP members, including director of facilities planning and analysis, Gary Bishop, facilities analyst Jed Hammer, executive vice provost Marc Johnson, interim associate vice president Stephen Mischissin, assistant vice president for planning, budget and analysis Bruce Shively, and vice president for administration and finance Ronald Zurek. We have several useful links for you:

• This article by Denise Harrison is in Campus Technology magazine.
• This link will take you to the MIKC's own, under construction, home page.
• From this link you can access a case statement for the MIKC, time-lapse photography of the project, and construction milestones and facts.
• The Facilities Services Department at UNR shows three large projects currently under construction and has links to several sets of guidelines: project development process, sustainability, and design and construction standards.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Right from the Start: Commissioning for High Performance Buildings

ASHRAE, and you'll know who that is if this is interesting to you, has commissioned what we expect to be a really good (and free) webcast on April 21: Right from the Start: Commissioning for High Performance Buildings. The webcast provides 3 PDHs (ASHRAE) and/or 3 AIA Learning Units.

Hear from leading commissioning experts about how commissioning supports a smoother construction process, maximizes energy and cost reductions, and provides a facility that operates as intended. This program will define the “what, why, when, and who” of the commissioning process and provide you with tools to commission your high performing building.

[more]

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

US Campuses Dig for Geothermal Energy

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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Geothermal just makes sense, where it makes sense. With only 5 buildings done out of the planned-for 18 to be upgraded to geothermal, the Theological Seminary in New York City already saved $200,000 in energy costs in the last year. A lot of schools, like Ball State University in Indiana, are building geothermal. BSU, with the charge led by SCUPer Bob Koester, is upgrading all 45 of its buildings and will save $2M per year. And dozens of schools are collected their portion of hundreds of millions of dollars in related federal grants, for construction and research.

So far this year, the Department of Energy has announced $400 million in grants to advance geothermal projects like those under way on a handful of campuses.

Geothermal technology has been around for decades, it works and it's increasingly affordable. At colleges that must maintain dozens of large buildings, the savings are magnified.

Those involved in the decision to pursue geothermal technology say they wanted to use less coal-fired power, although the schools also had to save money to justify the move.

Classroom and Technology Design and Construction Minimum Requirements

We found this 48-page PDF resource at the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF): "Presents minimal considerations for design and construction of all Pennsylvania State University classrooms/seminar/lecture halls, conference and meeting spaces being designed or planned for new or remodeled work. The guidelines are organized by Masterformat sections and cover quality requirements, openings, finishes, specialties, equipment, furnishings, systems, lighting, communication, safety and security, and commissioning."

What to Do While Your Building or Renovation Project Is On Hold

Many campuses will be postponing or curtailing new building projects and renovations due to the current economic climate, but the pressing need for newly configured, technology-enabled spaces has not gone away. This session will describe a number of low or no-cost strategies for moving institutions toward their overall goals for new learning spaces, particularly in libraries and computing centers, while waiting for the actual construction or renovation. In the process, these strategies may help campuses clarify what they hope the new spaces will accomplish, assist units in being able to implement new, user-driven services as soon as the new spaces are occupied, and forge new campus partnerships.

Read on:
http://net.educause.edu/content.asp?SECTION_ID=447&bhcp=1

P.S. :
Don't miss out on conversations with colleagues and peers at SCUP-44 in Portland. It's coming up fast!

http://www.scup.org/page/annualconf/44

In 2008 College and University Construction Spending Grew by $5.1B

It's quite strange to look at last year's figures and know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the trend line will dramatically change in 2009-2010. Or will it?

"Spending on construction by the nation's education institutions increased in 2008 . . . . One of the reasons for the increase in spending was the fact that the majority of the construction projects were started prior to the escalation of the economic crisis and were locked in to higher prices for materials and labor, among other things. . . . Colleges and universities spent $17.8 billion on construction in 2008, up from $12.7 billion the year before. Expenditures grew 35 percent for new construction and 48 percent for additions and modernizations."

Read the full article, from American School and University magazine here:
http://asumag.com/Construction/planning/education-construction-report-200905/

CP&M's 2009 College Construction Report

College Planning and Management's annual College Construction Report is something that many SCUPers eagerly await. This year's is here (PDF). It starts by noticing some frozen projects, then author Paul Abramson, who has been doing this report since 1995, looks over the history of the annual college and university capital construction budget:

I have been tracking college construction for College Planning & Management magazine since 1995, when $6.1B worth of construction was put in place (see Table 1). Construction stayed close to $6B a year from 1995 through 1999, when it reached $6.8B. . . . Starting in 2000, college construction began to shift into a higher gear. In 2000 it broke the $7B barrier for the first time ever, then jumped to $9.8B and then $11B the next two years, largely in response to a growing demand for seats in college classrooms and beds in residence halls. . . . By 2005, annual construction was up above $13B. In 2006, it topped $15B before falling back slightly to $14.5B in 2007, as reported a year ago. . . . At that time, I suggested that the drop to $14.5B in completed construction probably was not significant. But the projections we were showing for major cuts in construction spending in 2008 could be a sign of significant belt-tightening and even cutbacks. . . . As the United States and world economies have continued to deteriorate in the last year, those projected cuts have now occurred. College construction fell to just under $13.3B in 2008, a drop of $1.2B from the year before, and it is projected to fall even further in 2009. And that is construction funding. It says nothing about the funding necessary to furnish and staff the new buildings.

Tough Times, Silver Lining: Builders Lower Their Bids

As Scott Carlson puts it, in this article, "Now is a great time for colleges to get bids on construction projects — if they have the money to pay for them." It's nice to know that someone we know will be saving money. Bottom line: Materials costs are going down and construction people are offering lower cost bids. But not everyone is in a position to benefit:

Over the past several years, colleges have endured eye-popping escalation in the cost of campus construction, with the budgets swelling by more than 40 percent in some cases. The increases resulted from similarly rising costs for energy and petroleum-based building materials, and from growing demand for staples like steel and cement amid a booming construction market, both overseas and in the United States. Construction firms consistently bid high because of the demand for their work and to cover the risk of escalating costs on materials.

But times have changed. As the financial, housing, and major-construction markets have headed toward meltdowns, those same construction firms are looking for jobs, even while the prices of energy and materials have fallen. The prices of essential construction materials like structural steel, cement, and lumber are all expected to decline through 2009, according to Engineering News-Record, a trade magazine for the construction industry, published by McGraw-Hill. Because of those declines, building costs are likely to go down slightly this year.

Construction Waste: It's Not Just Trash Anymore

Of interest:

Don’t throw away that construction and demolition waste. Along with the changing worldview that there is no “away” in “throwaway,” routing waste to the landfill is also expensive. Treating waste as an asset, the Institution Recycling Network (IRN) helps projects divert waste to end markets that pay for the material. With its “waste miser” paradigm, the company provides a single point of contact to manage recyclable materials on construction and demolition projects. Mark Lennon, a principal at IRN, discusses the process, challenges, and benefits of construction and demolition recycling with John Oberlin, HEALTHCARE DESIGN online editor.

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Oberlin: Can a healthcare system actually make money from its construction and demolition waste?

Lennon: It would be rare that they would make money, but in terms of dropping money to the bottom line or the total impact on a budget, it’s the same thing to save $50,000 as it is to make $50,000. It all goes to the bottom line.

The Real Costs of Fast-Track Construction

From one of our favorite writers, Julie Sturgeon, comes this nicely-done article, "Finished in a Flash."

The drivers behind this popularity are intuitive. “When you’re trying to do a big project, you really do have to go fast because you make a lot of assumptions about your financial climate and the availability of the labor force,” Merck says. UCF’s addition sprung up in a mere four-and-a-half years, from the request for bids for design and construction in August 2003 to the opening of the final piece, the arena itself, in April 2008. “If it had taken us another two years, I’m not sure we would have finished given the current financial situation,” he adds.

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That’s why the word “compromise” becomes the project watchword. It goes without saying that administrators must give up the luxury of leisurely approval times. At UCF, it meant Merck needed to take possession of a residence hall in January and let it sit empty for six months for the sake of keeping the rest of the complex on time. (Even with the subsequent operating costs, the construction savings on this timetable reduced the cost in the end, he says.)

As Universities Age, Billions-Worth of Projects on Table

This is about Ohio, but we all know that Ohio is far from alone in this.

Students often complain about the sticker shock of tuition costs. But it is Ohio’s aging public universities and colleges that are facing a multibillion dollar backlog of construction needs.

The Ohio Board of Regents has estimated that 37.2 million square feet of education-related space requires rehabbing or rebuilding at the whopping cost of $3.9 billion to $5 billion. And while university presidents, officials and policymakers are scrambling to come up with all that money, a higher education building boom could provide a windfall for Ohio’s construction industry.

Most Trees in UC Berkeley Grove Down, Now

What a difficult time it's been for everyone involved at Berkeley:

Four men sharing a single liter of water, high in a lone redwood, were the last holdout tree sitters in the grove near UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium on Saturday, as contractors hired by the university cut down and began removing dozens of trees nearby.

The university launched the cutting Friday, taking a decisive step after nearly two years of conflict over what the grove protestors say was a Native American burial ground, a war memorial and a vital ecosystem — and where the school plans to build a new athletic facility. . . .

"They're these huge, 100-, 150-year-old trees. You hear them crack and creak and fall over, and it makes you sick, rips apart your stomach," said UC Berkeley student Rene Carranza, 25. "And this is all so people can do sit-ups in air-conditioning."

Prefab Construction and the Carbon Conundrum

An interesting take on the triple bottom line. Tom Robinson of The Greentree Gazette writes about some lessons learned at Rice University about how hard it is to understand the impact of various building styles:

The economic impact is improved by avoiding the likelihood of collision among several different tradesmen. The pods arrive completely assembled with fixtures and lighting – everything including the toilet paper holder. Local plumbers hook up the drains and water supply and electricians make one electrical connection. Voila. . . . The lifetime cost of prefab is even more attractive. Instead of drywall and studs, the pods are molded from glass reinforced plastic (GRP), similar to a fiberglass boat, and mounted on a steel base. So they don’t need constant patching and repainting and they won’t leak. With wall mounted fixtures, they can be cleaned easily.

The social impact test is whether students like their new digs. Director of Sustainability Richard Johnson explains that Rice showed photographs and a sample pod to students, who felt that the pods were indeed attractive and functional. And if they were less expensive and environmentally friendly, all the better. The student government president endorsed the decision at a groundbreaking ceremony. Designers are happy, too, because GRP accommodates design flexibility like radius corners and lots of finish options.

The environmental impact is a mixed bag. Use of prefab at the construction site provides benefits: less construction material waste; less decayed building materials leeching into the soil; less waste water runoff. The bathroom pods have dual flush toilets, low flow shower heads and energy-efficient lighting and ventilation. The materials are non-toxic.

Special Delivery: Public Institutions Slow to Adopt Design-Build?

The article, "Special Delivery," is from University Business magazine's July 2007 issue by Julie Sturgeon: "Competitive bidding may rule the construction scene, but that doesn't make it the best choice for all campus projects. Here's how your peers are breaking out of the box."

Let's be perfectly clear: No one is kicking the traditional design-bid-build model to the curb. It remains the most widely accepted model for getting campus construction projects done, because its linear process is easy to manage and it sets the stage for the lowest, responsible price. After all, the system offers college and university officials more than one set of checks and balances and controls, and it works in real time for truly market-driven invoices.

But sometimes it pays to get the cart before the horse. For instance, campus architects and pencil pushers aren't hesitant to explore alternative delivery methods when opening a dormitory faster means an income stream sooner, or when the facility design becomes complicated and the available in-house staff amounts to just a handful of already overworked architects.