Higher Education

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. 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 deep-rooted context upon which our recommendations are fundamentally based. Paired with a cost matrix, these deliverables put master plans into perspective, preparing your campus for project funding and long-term planning.

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, hands-on learning labs, traditional classrooms, or a blended approach, we help campuses provide the spaces that bring out the best in their students’ learning.

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. We design immersive learning spaces that can simulate stress-inducing scenarios—like a coding patient—by incorporating controlled environmental changes in temperature, light, vibration, and even “patient” feedback.

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.

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.

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.

We’re committed to being good stewards of the environment, regardless of whether certification is required.

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.

Many of our professionals are LEED-accredited 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