Columbia has long ranked among the top 20 engineering institutions in the country, but has aspirations to be in the top five. This goal is hindered by the relatively small size of its faculty and its limited space to grow and modernize. New research facilities are essential for recruiting the best faculty and students, yet two of the school’s four buildings opened during the 1960s and the newest opened more than 20 years ago. Modern and efficient central heating and cooling systems are crucial for creating the controlled environments needed for advanced research. But without a master planning framework, HVAC system and electrical upgrades had been limited to specific renovation project areas. As a result the buildings’ infrastructure had virtually no additional capacity or ability to adapt to new user requirements.

The project included five basic tasks: (1) a room-by-room survey that included creating a detailed three-dimensional digital Building Information Model (BIM) showing what exists (including large equipment and cabinetry); (2) engineering assessments of the four buildings using specific criteria developed for the study; (3) a menu of opportunities to improve space utilization consistent with the school’s academic priorities and space constraints; (4) conceptual floor plans and cost estimates for selected space opportunities and infrastructure system upgrades; and (5) a benchmark survey of space utilization in various types of labs at other engineering institutions’ i.e., average quantity of space per researcher and annual research funding in dollars per sq. ft. of space.

A major focus was whether growth could be accommodated within the existing buildings by reorganizing certain spaces to make them more efficient. Floor plans were developed that identified space that could be “recaptured” to provide room for more researchers. Specific re-use and reconfiguration proposals were advanced for this 35,000 sq. ft. of potentially freed up space.

The study showed how the four existing buildings could be better used to create additional capacity, and be reorganized and upgraded to provide better research space without waiting for construction of a new building. Its detailed information and proposals will help define and implement specific construction projects as academic space needs are prioritized and funded over time. Renovation and re-use proposals for 3 floors were drawn up as pilot projects in each of the 3 largest buildings; pre-schematic drawings and cost estimates were prepared that can be used for initial planning and fundraising. The study also defined the limits to growth within the existing building envelopes. The engineering school cannot expand as much as it wants to without acquiring more space. Even smaller reconfigurations are made difficult by the lack of “swing space” to use during construction.  A separate, but related initiative will be to plan and build a new engineering building on the Manhattanville campus to provide badly needed room for expansion.