Novartis Campus in San Diego

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, the Swiss-based pharmaceutical manufacturer, has contracted with DPR to build its new research facility, the Novartis Institute for Functional Genomics. DPR’s San Diego office broke ground in April on the 16-acre campus, which will be one of the top research facilities on the West Coast.

This landmark campus, designed by architect NBBJ of San Francisco, will be tackled in phases for a fast-track phased occupancy and is scheduled for initial occupancy in September 2001. With six buildings totaling 430,000 gross sq. ft., the project features laboratories, administrative offices, auditorium and kitchen facilities, as well as a three-story parking structure.

Expanding in Houston and San Antonio

Growing globally means growing locally. The Austin office is using DPR’s internal marketing communication to the max to grow its Texas presence-making the most of business leads put out on DPR’s contact management database or passed along through company-wide, business development conference calls. According to DPR’s Gary Nauert, the Austin office is doing an increasing amount of work in the Houston and San Antonio areas based on relationships started at other DPR offices. For example, the medical device manufacturer Guidant, which has had strong ties to DPR’s California offices for several years, turned to DPR’s Austin office for several TI projects in Houston. Other Houston/San Antonio projects for DPR customers range from data centers and colocation facilities to distribution hubs and corporate offices.

“These business leads are a two-way street,” says Nauert. “Our office has started relationships with companies like Motorola and CarrAmerica that have led to work for other DPR offices.”

DPR Joins Center for Integrated Facility Engineering

DPR joined the Center for Integrated Facility Engineering (CIFE), a research center at Stanford University focusing on technology applications in the AEC industries. Part of Stanford’s Departments of Civil Engineering and Computer Science, the center provides a resource to students, faculty and affiliate members.

As a partner in the center, DPR is concentrating its efforts on 4D CAD modeling technology and e-commerce issues. According to Atul Khanzode, with DPR’s Redwood City office, “We offer practical industry experience to researchers on Internet and 4D CAD needs in the private sector. In return, we gain knowledge through seminars and access to research findings.”

Lights, Camera, Video Job Walks

DPR has turned what started out as Christmas party entertainment into a functional tool for project estimating and preconstruction planning. Project managers are using video as a supplement to the traditional job walk-taping jobsites before, during and at the completion of construction.

According to DPR San Diego’s Matt Henwood, the videos give the project team an opportunity to review and study existing site conditions that might affect schedules or budgets. These videos can also be shown to owners and architects during estimating and design stages.

Despite their new use, the videos still serve an important internal function. For Matt Pranzo with Mirror Mirror Digital Media, which began producing DPR videos in 1998, showing them at company events gives families of DPR employees a better sense of what their loved ones have been building. As a husband of a DPR employee, Matt should know.