From its humble beginnings as a tiny pharmaceutical college founded by 14 Boston pharmacists, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences has grown to become the largest school of its kind in the U.S.
For more than 175 years, MCPHS operated solely in Boston, on a quaint, 2,500-student campus in the heart of the city's famed Longwood Medical and Academic Area. By the late 1990s, however, the campus was bursting at the seams as the demand for pharmacy and health sciences professionals skyrocketed.
To accommodate the rapid growth, college officials set forth an ambitious plan to build a satellite campus in Worcester for 400 students, including housing for 175 graduate students.
Worcester is home to a number of prestigious clinical organizations, including the UMass Memorial Medical Center, providing plenty of partnership opportunities for the school. The city is also in the midst of an aggressive urban revitalization effort, and MCPHS was viewed by city officials as crucial to rejuvenating the city core.
In 2000, MCPHS snatched up two adjacent historic buildings in the heart of the city and within months converted the first—an 1890s-era commercial structure—into 60,000 sf of research, instruction, and lab space. Soon after, the college began work on the crown jewel of its new satellite campus: the nine-story, 100,000-sf Living and Learning Center.
The $20 million project involved restoring and converting the 1913 Graphic Arts Building into a mixed-use facility complete with street-level retail, classrooms, labs, conference rooms, faculty offices, and five levels of apartment-style residence space.
The construction effort was split into two phases and spanned 16 months. It involved the addition of a ninth floor, restoration of the existing façade, the gut-conversion of the eight existing floors, and construction of three CMU shafts from the basement to the top floors to accommodate new fire stairs and elevators and to support the rooftop addition.
The Building Team employed a fast-track schedule that left little room for error. Case in point: The critical-path schedule for the rooftop addition left less than two months for the installation and testing of new electrical and mechanical rooms on the top floor.
“This project is a great example of superior logistics in construction,” said Reconstruction Awards judge Kenneth R. Osmun, P.E., DBIA, president of Wight Construction, Darien, Ill.
Related Stories
| Jan 6, 2015
Snøhetta unveils design proposal of the Barack Obama Presidential Center Library for the University of Hawaii
The plan by Snøhetta and WCIT Architecture features a building that appears square from the outside, but opens at one corner into a rounded courtyard with a pool, Dezeen reports.
| Jan 2, 2015
Construction put in place enjoyed healthy gains in 2014
Construction consultant FMI foresees—with some caveats—continuing growth in the office, lodging, and manufacturing sectors. But funding uncertainties raise red flags in education and healthcare.
| Dec 29, 2014
Spherical reflectors help spread daylight throughout a college library in Portland, Ore. [BD+C's 2014 Great Solutions Report]
The 40,000-sf library is equipped with four “cones of light,” spherical reflectors made from extruded aluminum that distribute daylight from the library’s third floor to illuminate the second. The innovation was named a 2014 Great Solution by the editors of Building Design+Construction.
BIM and Information Technology | Dec 28, 2014
The Big Data revolution: How data-driven design is transforming project planning
There are literally hundreds of applications for deep analytics in planning and design projects, not to mention the many benefits for construction teams, building owners, and facility managers. We profile some early successful applications.
| Dec 28, 2014
AIA course: Enhancing interior comfort while improving overall building efficacy
Providing more comfortable conditions to building occupants has become a top priority in today’s interior designs. This course is worth 1.0 AIA LU/HSW.
| Dec 28, 2014
6 trends steering today's college residence halls
University students want more in a residence hall than just a place to sleep. They want a space that reflects their style of living and learning.
| Dec 10, 2014
New study says prefab elements saved Colorado hospital $4.3 million in construction
A study by engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder found that prefab approaches on the new Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver cut 72 workdays off the schedule and resulted in millions in savings.
| Dec 9, 2014
UC Merced campus earns fourth LEED Platinum certification
The award brings the campus total for LEED certifications through the U.S. Green Building Council to 13, with its newest building under construction, the second Classroom and Office Building, expected to also achieve platinum status.
| Dec 2, 2014
Nonresidential construction spending rebounds in October
This month's increase in nonresidential construction spending is far more consistent with the anecdotal information floating around the industry, says ABC's Chief Economist Anirban Basu.
| Dec 1, 2014
How public-private partnerships can help with public building projects
Minimizing lifecycle costs and transferring risk to the private sector are among the benefits to applying the P3 project delivery model on public building projects, according to experts from Skanska USA.
