At LaBella, our dedicated Higher Education Design Studio is committed to designing with the student experience in mind. In today’s highly competitive higher education market, we understand that the facilities we create must be innovative, provide a unique experience, and deliver lasting value to both students and institutions.
As our practice has grown, we’ve combined our expertise in building design with a deep understanding of educational environments. Our team is committed to continuous research and design progression. Academic buildings are no longer driven by student-to-seat or seat-to-classroom ratios—our methods of instruction have evolved alongside the technology that shapes our daily lives.
Colleges and universities must address today’s challenges while providing facilities equipped for tomorrow’s advancements. This requires facilities that are flexible, sustainable, and costcompetitive, while also accounting for long-term operational expenses.
Design for Higher Education
Engaging students and elevating learning through thoughtful design.
Campuses everywhere are balancing the maintenance of older facilities “steeped in tradition” with the need for new spaces designed for modern learners and the technology that comes with them.
Most designers understand that educational environments need to be functional and inspiring. With predictions of financial challenges for smaller institutions, many campuses are prioritizing student recruitment and retention.
At LaBella, our designs transcend basic requirements. We design with the entire student experience in mind—creating educational and student life spaces that amplify learning, spur connections, and are celebrated.
Our teams have made a conscious commitment to never stop learning—about your campus and your goals, your students and their learning styles, and what it takes to excite and help both you and your students excel.
When our clients have a need, we respond. The result? Diverse service offerings for your entire campus.
No matter the project, we build a team that has demonstrated reliability and accountability. We provide a long list of in-house expertise and engage outside partners where appropriate.
From maintenance projects and infrastructure upgrades to new buildings that raise big questions about programming, priorities, and pedagogies, we’re equipped to expertly execute projects from start to finish.
Interdisciplinary, informal spaces are creating campus learning experiences that can’t be replicated in traditional environments.
Laying the groundwork and setting the tone for years to come.
Master planning is a comprehensive review of existing facilities paired with shaping a clear vision of the future. It helps paint the ‘big picture’, guiding institutions toward informed decision-making that is both easier and better aligned with long-term campus development goals and instructional strategic plans.
Whether the scale is a building, complex, or campus, LaBella takes a holistic and strategic approach to master planning.
First, we listen and learn— engaging you to help us understand current conditions and share what your users like and dislike. Focus groups help us create well-informed designs that suit the needs and satisfy the “wants” of end users and stakeholders.
Next, we identify site challenges and opportunities, synthesize programmatic aspirations, and summarize campus attributes.
Through analytics, demographic analysis, workforce studies, and other relevant data, our team provides deeprooted context upon which our recommendations are fundamentally based.
It’s big-picture planning with acute attention to detail.
Studying the details that make your campus survive or thrive is just as important. Connectivity, utilization, gathering places, programs, materials, and overall aesthetic—plan diagrams and renderings help us clearly identify these significant master plan components and illustrate their possibilities.
Aligning the full plan with reality.
Collected data, like utilization analyses and survey results, supports the feasibility of such visions.
Paired with a cost matrix, these deliverables put master plans into perspective, preparing your campus for project funding and long-term planning.
Formal & Informal Learning
We’re pushing the envelope on pedagogies.
Formal learning spaces are evolving. As learning and teaching pedagogies follow suit, we continue to educate ourselves on the latest design innovations— while creating our own.
Whether it’s modular furniture that flexes for group work, handson learning labs, traditional classrooms, or a blended approach, we help campuses provide the spaces that bring out the best in their students’ learning.
Easing the shift from academia to the workplace.
Colleges and universities are tasked with preparing students for the “real world,” and the traditional classroom doesn’t always fit the bill.
Learning happens everywhere.
As pedagogies evolve, so too will spatial requirements.
Quiet or solitary learners may prefer study carrels or small, enclosed breakout rooms, while others prefer larger breakout spaces and lounge settings for group study and enrichment activities.
Our interiors team works with campuses to integrate technology and facilitate the sampling and testing of furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E) that support the culture and all learning styles.
Learning spaces like specialty learning labs and simulated environments create a multisensory experience. Our teams are skilled at designing workshops and laboratories that put the work in students’ hands.
Technology—like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR)—immerses students in the moment and provides real world perspective and experience not found in the traditional classroom.
Research & Health Sciences
Manifesting a career in science.
Research and innovation are at the heart of many colleges and universities. Our laboratory design offers opportunities for hands-on, experiential learning—whether in traditional academic science labs or in experience labs that leverage technology to simulate real-world environments.
By engaging in these simulations, the traditional learning curve between academia and the workplace may become a thing of the past.
Going beyond technical know-how.
We design immersive learning spaces that can simulate stressinducing scenarios—like a coding patient—by incorporating controlled environmental changes in temperature, light, vibration, and even “patient” feedback.
These spaces serve as incubators for safely developing interpersonal skills, self-efficacy, and confidence when faced with uncommon or crisis situations.
From space planning and technology to safety and regulations.
Having designed over 1,000 new and renovated labs, we are committed to developing solutions that meet the needs of both the programs and their user groups, while also supporting those responsible for maintaining and supporting the lab spaces.
Our laboratory services include programming, planning, design, and commissioning for R&D, educational, pharmaceutical, medical, and industrial laboratories.
Laboratory Experience
• Accessioning Labs
• Analytical Labs
• Animal Facilities
• Basic Science
• Biology
• Biosafety Level 2 & 3
• Ceramics
• Development Labs
• DNA Purification Labs
• Engineering Sciences
• Environmental Testing
• Forensic Sciences
• Formulation Labs
• Genetics/Genotyping
• GLP Labs
• Laser
• Microbiology
• Molecular Biology
• Nuclear/NMR
• Optical
• Organic Synthesis Labs
• Pathology
• Pathogen Safety
• Photonics
• Physics
• Quality Control/Assurance Labs
• Screening Labs
• Sequencing Labs
• Toxicology/Pharmacology
• Virology & TSE Containment
• Wet Chemistry
Student Life
Prospective students regularly indicate that the quality of facilities—and the community life they create—is among the top criteria when selecting a school.
Students seek environments that foster a sense of community. Incorporating areas for play, faith, healing, and respite present opportunities for meaningful connection.
LaBella’s expertise includes developing shared spaces such as dining halls, cafés, lounges, outdoor plazas, campus greens, faith centers, and residence halls.
We design each space to the highest quality with flexibility and adaptability in mind, giving students and educators the freedom to make each space their own.
The diversity of each higher education project is matched only by the diversity of today’s student body.
That’s why we provide options every step of the way.
Whether it’s furniture and space configurations for dining halls or acoustic design for your campus chapel, we’ve seen and done it all.
Indoor Athletic spaces
We’re designing player spaces and state-of-the-art facilities that bring out the best in your athletes and captivate new ones.
We train to meet your athletic goals.
We understand what it means to work with the Athletics Department and various stakeholders on student-athlete facilities. It’s a comprehensive process from kickoff to the final whistle to gain a full understanding of your project goals, develop unique and creative solutions, enhance the experience with branding and graphics, and finally, adhere to budget and schedule.
From renovation to new construction, we bring expertise to every kind of student-athlete space—whether it’s indoor tracks and courts, weight training rooms, locker rooms, team meeting areas, coaches’ offices, or specialized spaces for rehabilitation and hydrotherapy.
Outdoor Athletics
From the tallest light pole shining down on a court to the stormwater chambers below keeping fields dry, we provide a full roster of services to renovate or construct outdoor fields, courts, and tracks.
Never an afterthought—the parking, sidewalks, ticket booths, plazas, spectator seating, restrooms, maintenance/ storage buildings, lighting, and stormwater management systems are seamlessly woven into a safe, low-maintenance, and visually impactful design.
We honor the history, contextual cues, aesthetics, and future goals of your campus—while designing a field that no athlete can walk away from.
Our student-athletic facilities provide families, teams, bands, and organizations with spaces to gather over a shared interest.
Infrastructure
We provide the expertise necessary to keep your infrastructure functional, sustainable, and up to date.
From the utilities powering your campus to the traffic entering it, we have a thorough understanding of campus infrastructure needs.
Our civil engineers tackle the water, wastewater, stormwater, and utility connections that keep your facilities up and running.
Our transportation planners, traffic engineers, and landscape architects create campus connections that are inviting, compelling, safe, and unified with the surrounding context.
When regulated building materials or nearby ecological habitats are a concern, our environmental scientists protect your campus and the ecology inhabiting it.
Built to last.
Whether it’s new construction or historic building upgrades, our buildings team understands the challenges colleges and universities face regarding energy savings, operations, and the ongoing maintenance of their campus facilities.
LaBella’s mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection engineers design and improve the building systems that maintain a comfortable learning environment.
Our structural engineers address the integrity from foundations to rooftops, as well as historic façades and campus bridges.
Making it work, together.
A long list of colleges and universities keep LaBella in their toolbox. And it’s not just because we’re great partners, but because we have a deep understanding of building and educational design.
As a full service firm, we understand the nature of term contract assignments, have flexibility in how we staff projects, and have a greater capacity to respond to our clients’ needs— even on the shortest of notice.
The environment is always on our mind. Our designs meet campus needs in a resilient, efficient, and environmentally conscious manner wherever possible.
Energy efficiency for a sustainable future.
Focusing on building efficiency, decarbonization strategies, and the design and implementation of renewable energy technologies, our dedicated energy team has the expertise and drive to help campuses achieve their performance goals while planning for a more sustainable future.
Sustainability & Building Performance
We’re committed to being good stewards of the environment, regardless of whether certification is required.
Many of our professionals are LEEDaccredited and WELL-certified, and are dedicated to design that supports campus health and well-being, our environment, and our collective future.
We have experience working with:
• U.S. Green Building Council LEED certifications
• International Green Construction Code
• Net Zero design
• WELL Building Standard
• Utility-sponsored incentive programs
To learn more about our higher education experience and to view our portfolio, scan the QR code below.
At LaBella Associates, our job is to create—structures, plans, ideas, results. As a nationally recognized Design Professional Corporation, that’s a given, right? But here’s what really drives us: creating partnership between our team and our clients. So much so that we become one team, unified in the unrelenting pursuit of exceptional performance on each and every project. Reliability. Accountability. Collaboration. Respect. Not skills we went to school for, but innate in LaBella team members.
The pursuit of partnership is embedded in our culture—has been since our inception in 1978. And it affects client outcomes in profound ways. It means we’re built to expertly execute projects from start to finish. That we have the talent and resources to take on any challenge. That projects are completed on time, on budget, and beyond expectations. And that we win awards—not just for our talent, but also for our ethics, employee culture, and growth.
Today, our wheelhouse is broad, with four key service offerings: Buildings, Energy, Infrastructure, and Environmental. Our reach is widespread with staff located throughout the country and Europe. We’re headquartered in Rochester, NY—but our impact is seen, felt, and experienced around the world.
Visit us at www.labellapc.com to get a glimpse of some of the things we’re working on right now. But don’t let us do all the talking— tell us about your goals by calling (877) 626-6606.
