Rice University Teaching Laboratory Master Plan

As part of it s Strategic Vision to enhance its learning and research environments, Rice University initiated a comprehensive review of all of its undergraduate instructional laboratories.

Ellenzweig worked closely with University representatives in completing a comprehensive study of 47 teaching laboratories in 13 buildings for 11 departments.  This included all teaching labs for the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Engineering.  The study examined current teaching labs, including utilization, availability, and needs for teaching labs.  Layouts of existing teaching labs were examined to determine how they respond to contemporary teaching methods.

The scope of Ellenzweig’s services included documenting faculty, staff, and stakeholder perspectives on teaching labs at Rice; comparing common practices in teaching lab design at other universities with existing lab spaces at Rice; identifying shortcomings of existing teaching labs and outlining methods to upgrade or repurpose existing labs to satisfy current and future teaching lab needs; identifying requirements for access to shared equipment and support functions; identifying staffing needs for existing, renovated, and/or repurposed labs; documenting existing lab utilization, including room occupancy, number of student sections, and course scheduling to better understand current use of existing teaching lab spaces and to develop approaches to increase lab utilization; establishing guidelines for teaching lab prototypes to address the different disciplines and pedagogies; and making recommendations for specific teaching lab renovations.

In the Programming and Pre-Design Study that followed completion of the Master Plan, Ellenzweig proposed specific upgrades to five (5) teaching laboratories for University budgeting and planning purposes.  Subsequently, Ellenzweig provided full design services for upgrades to the Biology teaching labs in the MD Anderson Building and an active learning, multi-media lab for Computer Science in Duncan Hall.  Renovations were completed in 2017.