HMMI campus up and running On Oct. 5, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute officially opened the doors of its $500 million Janelia Farms campus: a site specifically designed to help attract and retain world-class researchers. The centerpiece, the undulating 581,000-ft2 “landscape building,” provides the equivalent of 85 stories of R&D facilities set into a hillside. Janelia Farms director Gerald Rubin is R&D Magazine’s 2005 Scientist of the Year; famed New York architect Rafael Viñoly designed the 689-acre project (with 60 developed acres) in cooperation with HHMI. In addition to labs, the campus’ 760,000 ft2 of space includes a conference facility with 96 rooms for short-term visitors, and a housing village for more than 100 long-term visitors. For more: www.hhmi.org. The end of construction documents? The National Institute of Building Sciences is working on a new standard for BIM: building information modeling. Adoption of digital, 3-D documentation could make conventional construction documents obsolete, but major hurdles remain, according to a report in Building Design & Construction. Difficulties include required changes in team configuration and coordination, front-loading of information inputs, ownership of intellectual property, the temptation to overdesign the project, and lack of software platform standardization. For more: www.bdcnetwork.com/article/CA6352200.html. UC-Irvine on science construction roll The Univ. of California system has seen a massive investment in science construction during the past decade—some related to mandated seismic upgrades, some to strategic goals in education and faculty recruitment. The Univ. of California-Irvine exemplifies the trend, with the vast majority of its planned construction aimed at beefing up and expanding its science and research capabilities. Currently under construction are the $57 million Biological Sciences Unit 3 building, a $35 million computer science facility, and a $12 million vivarium expansion in the existing McGaugh Hall building. The school is also renovating its existing Rowland Hall physical sciences building to the tune of $21 million. Bids are soon to be awarded for the $48 million Engineering Unit 3 facility and a $3 million vivarium build-out in Hewitt Hall. Among its unfunded but planned projects, the school forecasts investments in the $20 to $50 million range for a fourth biomedical sciences facility, an instruction and research building, and a new social and behavioral sciences building. Costs of more than $50 million each are predicted for a planned general science lab and a new physical engineering and sciences facility. For more: http://www.designandconstruction.uci.edu/. Berkeley hood finds commercial partner Esco Micro Pte Ltd., Singapore, has completed the licensing process to design, manufacture, and sell energy-efficient fume hoods based on research and prototypes developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Long in search of a commercial champion, the “Berkeley hood” was a pioneer in the design of units that provide safe levels of containment at face velocity rates considerably lower than the “standard” 100 fpm. The hoods operate with constant-volume controls rather than requiring the more complex VAV controls. For more: http://hightech.lbl.gov/htnews/htn-issue2.html.    Building organizations, Clinton unite on global warming The Clinton Climate Initiative has recently gained some high-profile partners in its effort to reduce carbon emissions and increase energy efficiency in the world’s major metro areas. The U.S. Green Building Council and ASHRAE, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, have agreed to actively work with the CCI, a new organization funded by the Clinton Foundation, which is headed by former president Bill Clinton. The CCI’s first effort is a cooperative program with the existing Large Cities Climate Change Leadership Group. Key goals include improving green purchasing power, mobilizing and deploying technical expertise, and implementing common measurement tools in the areas of buildings, power and water, and transportation. For more: http://www.clintonfoundation.org/cf-pgm-cci-home.htm Labs grab media attention Two laboratory buildings are among the eight top winners in the 2007 Business Week/ Architectural Record awards program. Jurors cite facilities for design excellence that make a demonstrable contribution to the owners’ business goals. The Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Cambridge, Mass., designed by The Stubbins Associates, Cambridge, was one of the winning projects; the “candy factory” project was also named Laboratory of the Year/Adaptive Reuse in the 2005 R&D Magazine Laboratory of the Year competition. Also recognized was the Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, designed for the Univ. of Toronto by Behnisch Architekten of Stuttgart, Germany, and architectsAlliance, Toronto. The Donnelly building previously received a 2006 International Award from the Royal Institute of British Architects, and an Award of Excellence from the Ontario Assn. of Architects. NBBJ’s Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute expansion project, Cambridgeshire, U.K., previously recognized as a 2006 Special Mention winner in the R&D competition, received a Business Week/Architectural Record merit award. For more: http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/060817bwar.asp. A/E analysis says green is profitable An in-house study of 15 “green” projects by St. Louis-based A/E firm Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum indicates that sustainability actually improved project profitability. On average, the “green” jobs were 25% more profitable for the firm than comparable conventional projects. HOK isn’t sure why this occurred, but director of sustainable design Mary Ann Lazarus speculates that the integrated design process required for successful sustainable projects may have improved efficiency and reduced costs. For more: http://tinyurl.com/pt4to. In addition, HOK, which has created a strong niche in the green building market, has announced an alliance with Advanced Environmental, a specialty environmental division of Queensland, Australia-based Lincolne Scott consulting engineers. Advanced Environmental staff member Andrew Corney has relocated to the HOK San Francisco office, where he will consult on green projects. Notably, the team will work on a project converting airplane hangars in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for the Pacific Region Center of the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Agency (NOAA). For more: http://tinyurl.com/n3yqq.