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The Digital Futures Building at the University of Cincinnati contains 16 multidisciplinary labs where researchers can study next-level topics, such as using artificial intelligence to enrich people’s lives, determining how cryptocurrency impacts the market, applying virtual and augmented reality to improve training programs, and analyzing human performance to enhance athletic training and rehabilitation. Its location in the city’s Innovation Hub offers proximity to startups, midsize businesses, and Fortune 500 companies. The top two floors of the facility are available for use by corporate partners.
Training the scientists and engineers of the future requires academic spaces that are as much as a story taller and 1,000 sf bigger than in the past, and better-equipped to support entrepreneurship, industry partnerships, and hands-on learning. In addition to the standard makerspaces—with metal shops, machining labs, woodshops, prototyping, and 3D printing—students are also experimenting with wind tunnels and large water tanks.
Recent catastrophic weather events have devastated animal facilities, with the loss of thousands of animals, years of research, and untold potential grant opportunities. The National Academies, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are calling on research institutions to be more proactive in their approach to disruptions as varied as weather, terrorism, and supply chain disruptions. Facilities design features can help protect against threats from infiltrating air and water, as well as accommodate animals and their care staff that may have to shelter in place until the threat has passed.
The evolution of space planning and utilization was kicked into overdrive during the COVID-19 pandemic, as everyone from private industry to higher education to government entities was forced to rethink who works where, and when. After three years of transition, organizations are now implementing innovative hybrid work scenarios and space utilization initiatives that reflect the new workplace landscape. The emerging solution is a hybrid work model that blends work-from-home with time spent at a shared physical work environment. That provides institutions the opportunity to make the most efficient use of the space they have, shed the facilities they don’t need, and focus on creating spaces that entice employees out of their home offices and back to the workplace.
Emerging research is showing that automation of low-level vivarium tasks can help fill a persistent labor shortage while maintaining or even improving the animals’ quality of life. “People are expensive,” explains Jeffrey Zynda, principal and regional science practice leader at Perkins&Will in Boston. “We design so much around the human component of animal facilities when, really, we can be much more targeted and focused towards the animal needs.”
