Refurbishing: Ultimate Recycling or Fatal Compromise?

Joshua Gassman, RA LEED AP, Lord Aeck Sargent Architecture

Research and undergraduate institutions around the US (and the world) have millions of square feet of outdated laboratories that will need to be either renovated or replaced in the next decade; this problem has been exacerbated by the recent serious recession and has left institutions with outdated infrastructure that needs to be made current in order to complete for research dollars and researchers/professional staff looking toward the future.

With construction funding in short supply compared with prerecession levels, combined with aging infrastructure, institutions are faced with the ever increasingly difficult question: do we renovate what we have, and hope it's good enough or do we build anew, using valuable resources that may not go as far?

To address this question, one must understand in the context of the institution, its overall infrastructure including research and teaching goals.

Using a practical, approachable and forward looking case study methodology, we will review the issues wholistically, using campus lab master plans that include calculating swing space and the cost of temporary locations in addition to the cost of renovation and new construction, to the floor by floor renovation of a single building, to the wholesale gut of a high-rise research building.

We will review in-depth the processes we utilized with these institutions and how this assisted facilities personnel, professional staff and researchers with making difficult decisions with long term implications that formed the basis of looking to the future of each campus.

Learning Objectives

  • Participants will identify and discuss the evaluation methods used to determine if new construction or renovation of existing space is a better use of an institution's resources
  • Participants will identify and discuss the costs of new construction and renovation and the monetary risks associated with both of them.
  • Participants will review campus master plans and determine if renovation or new construction is a better option for that master plan.

Biography:

Joshua Gassman is a gifted and engaging presenter with extensive experience focused on complex multi-faceted laboratory projects. He has played a major role in defining the lab of the future through application of better solutions to meet new requirements and unarticulated needs. Mr. Gassman has considerable practical experience with the USGBC's LEED Rating System, including net zero water and net zero energy projects. He is a graduate of Arizona State University and Washington University.

 

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