Infrastructure Development is responsible for the planning, development, renewal, and renovation of campus facilities at both UBC Vancouver campus and Okanagan campus. We collaborate with campus stakeholders to create great spaces for teaching and learning, conducting leading-edge research, and enjoying the life of the campus community.
The department is comprised of four inter-related units that work closely with the other departments within Facilities and development partners across the UBC community, such as the Office of the Provost and Vice-President, Academic, Campus & Community Planning, Treasury, Student Housing & Community Services and UBC Properties Trust, to provide stewardship for all institutional facilities projects. Infrastructure Development engages UBC Properties Trust to manage the design and construction of major new building projects.
Facilities Planning
The Facilities Planning unit provides comprehensive planning services that support and accommodate academic and research growth and change at UBC while ensuring the best and highest use of campus space. Facilities Planners work to translate the physical space needs and functional requirements of the people in that space into reality, one which achieves an efficient and harmonious utilization of people, equipment, space, and energy.
Facilities Planning coordinates all Master Plans and Functional Programs for new major capital projects and renovations. Master planning and functional programming are important initial activities that translate the facility requirements and overall goals of our customers into workable design solutions for major projects and renovations. The analysis presented in both types of documents communicates the need for facility expansion and/or improvement which assists the capital planning process in gaining support for financing and funding.
Facilities Planners, along with Facilities Managers, are the first point of contact, on any projects that involve space use on campus. This includes all academic and administration spaces (i.e. research and teaching spaces, offices, libraries, study and informal learning spaces, recreation spaces, meeting and event spaces).
In addition, the Facilities Planners ensure that space is allocated fairly across campus and across disciplines, that it meets user needs and is designed, built and occupied efficiently and effectively to serve UBC’s academic mission.
Learning Spaces
The Learning Spaces team within Facilities Planning is responsible for day-to-day stewardship of approximately 350 General Teaching Spaces (GTS). They provide planning and oversight for an annual maintenance and upgrade program, which includes AV system upgrades and furniture renewal. This team represents GTS classrooms in new capital projects, from functional programming through design and construction, ensuring that GTS are aligned with the UBC Learning Space Design Guidelines.
Learn more about Learning Spaces at UBC
Project Services
Project Services is a dedicated group of professionals who provide project management services for renovations, renewals and modernization of buildings and campus infrastructure ranging in size from $50,000 to $100 million dollars. This includes a wide variety of capital projects ranging from classroom and lab renovations, building system replacements, accessibility upgrades, and public realm improvements to whole building renewals. They are also responsible for managing the design, construction, and commissioning of alternative energy systems, such as the campus-wide Academic District Energy System (ADES) steam to hot water conversion project and the Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Facility (BRDF) expansion project, which contribute to the UBC Climate Action Plan.
The team is responsible for managing the course of a project from inception to completion, through planning, design, construction, commissioning and handover. Project Services is the main liaison on projects between the designated user/customer, consultant team, contractors, and other UBC stakeholders. This includes working with the customer to develop ideas into projects, determining the project objective, scope, timeline, and budget, as well as supporting administrative functions and ongoing activities of the project.
In all their work, Project Services aims to deliver on UBC’s short and long-term goals, to maximize the benefit of every capital improvement. Project Services also provides support for planning of capital projects, including working in close collaboration with Facilities Planning and academic/research units in support of funding applications to granting agencies such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).
Asset Replacement & Improvement
The Asset Replacement & Improvements (ARI) unit is comprised of two teams – the Transition Team and the Construction Office. The Transition Team is tasked with ensuring that new buildings and renovation projects are delivered to the campus community in accordance with UBC’s technical guidelines, and are ultimately maintainable for the lifespan of the assets they provide. This team provides technical expertise during the planning and handover phases of projects to ensure that an operational lens is applied to the project design, and to ensure that all information required to successfully transition new assets installed by the project is delivered to the operational teams that will maintain them.
Construction Office
The Construction Office is responsible for the successful delivery of smaller customer-funded projects for the University, primarily via coordination of in-house trades that perform the work. The projects that the Construction Office delivers directly and positively impact the day-to-day working environment of UBC’s staff, faculty, and students—such as lab and office renovations, and requested upgrades to the existing mechanical and electrical systems within buildings. The separation of these customer-funded minor upgrade project requests from maintenance requests by our customers helps to ensure that maintenance funding is not eroded by the costs of elective improvements.
Capital Planning & Strategic Project Development
Capital Planning & Strategic Project Development liaises with the BC Ministry of Post-Secondary Education & Future Skills and UBC faculty and senior administration to develop multi-year capital plans for academic buildings and building system upgrade projects. The project cost estimates produced through this process determine the overall funding requirements for the construction, refit, and replacement of campus buildings and infrastructure.
Capital Planning also promotes and coordinates UBC Renew projects. This initiative works to reinvigorate existing buildings as needed to meet current construction standards and the needs of UBC’s academic community.