Minding the Gap
Nov 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Mark Dilworth
How to integrate design, capital funding and academic planning during a recession.
Education facility planners frequently face a gap between available funding for the construction of new facilities and an academic program's projections about the size of facility needed to meet future aspirations. Although many different circumstances and scenarios may cause this disparity, the path to reconciling differences can be achieved by carefully balancing present-day funding limitations with the anticipated physical design requirements of the facility.
In the current economic climate, more architects and construction managers may find themselves caught between what seem to be mutually exclusive goals. Some colleges already are halting construction projects until conditions in credit markets improve or additional grant funding can be secured. Designing a higher-education facility that accommodates today's needs while providing for — or at the very least, anticipating — a program's future needs still is essential. Even though funding for higher education is decreasing, the number of students seeking admission is expected to increase, creating yet another gap to bridge. But lack of funding shouldn't mean the end of construction planning. And more important, it shouldn't mean the size of a project must be compromised.
Several higher-education institutions of varying sizes and budgets recently have succeeded in bridging the gap between their capital funding limits and future academic planning goals. The following case studies illustrate how these institutions' objectives were achieved. Although the gaps resulted from different circumstances in each case, the architects carved out a similar path to reconciliation through solid design:
Gap 1: Funding delays
When it came time to design and build a new school of management for a mid-sized public research university, an overheated construction market and a lag between the appropriation of funding and the project's initiation led to a 20 percent gap between the $28 million budget and the desired program. The program called for a 200,000-square-foot building, but by the time the project moved forward, the funding could support construction of only 160,000 square feet.
Because the original budget was set at the height of a construction boom, the university dean, construction manager and architect shared a conviction that prices would fall as design and construction progressed. Each party felt that constructing a facility 20 percent smaller than the dean's original program goals would limit the development of the school and therefore, would be a mistake. The three parties worked together to find areas in the program that could be deferred for several years, in order to “free” up enough budgeted dollars to build an additional 40,000 square feet of shell space.
Just as the planning team had anticipated, construction pricing fell as the project was “bought out” over the course of the 15-month construction period. This made it possible to not only build the additional 40,000 square feet of shell space, but also finish it out completely.
Gap 2: Reallocated funds
About $21 million was appropriated for a new 107,000-square-foot home for the chemistry department at a large state university. After the architect was hired and schematic design was completed for the building, the university had an unanticipated opportunity to make a major acquisition of real estate. The campus planners decided to pay for part of the acquisition with about 30 percent of the dollars originally allocated for the chemistry building, which meant the chemistry department would have 30 percent less space for classrooms, labs and administrative offices.
The dean of the chemistry department believed that the original programming was essential for the department's future success. In working with the architect and construction manager, the team developed a plan to build the full shell building envisioned in the schematic design, but to finish out the interior space in two phases, including mechanical systems. The designers took great care to situate future areas that could be shelled in relation to the internal circulation of the building, so that the occupants of Phase I would not feel as though they were in an incomplete facility. To accomplish this task, the team created a temporary closure wall and left room in the mechanical systems for additional equipment to ventilate and cool future space. Within one year of occupancy of Phase I, funding was raised to complete the entire facility.
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