Georgetown University was another one of my favorites from the trip. The Regents Hall had wonderful architecture that echoed the newer building across an open area as well as the brick features in the older building on the campus.
Then of course there was their shipping and receiving spaces. They were huge! You could drive a semi into them! And plenty of spaces around the building to store waste. Plus we got to see an actual clean room. Of course, the half we walked through they had down for repairs, but the other half was completely operational. Mind you, the clean "rooms" that I've seen are generally a small, plastic enclosed space. This one was a real room! Which had just the same equipment that you'd have in a normal lab.
I also loved that there were not rooms of long rows of lab benches. Instead, they had work spaces where groups of four students could work on a project and actually see one another and talk face-to-face, without cabinetry getting in the way! That really got my mind going about setting up labs which were project-based and data sets that involve more than just cookbook style labs.
They also had really cool open spaces. Lots and lots of informal study spaces, places to eat a snack or lunch or just hang out until class. Definitely not some of the older chemistry buildings I'm accustomed to! Who knew you could do science, teach science, enjoy science in a building that had windows, sunlight, and places to sit!
Then, once we were done looking at the science building, we went over to explore the cone-shaped building that was their business building. Again, great open spaces! Light! And a huge performance/lecture hall complete with a Green Room. What lecture instructor needs a Green Room?
The benches were very simple, with only a small lighting and gases flowing to the bench. They did allow stools, but I'm not a fan of stools. They get left out and I end up tripping on them. We also saw their organic labs, which had whiteboards on the exposed end of the fume hood. That way, when a student had a question, the TA didn't have to walk back to the front of the room to use a whiteboard to explain a reaction or resort to the favorite of writing on the glass of the hood.
The underground library at John Hopkins was another favorite of mine. While I never saw a book while we were there, they had great open study spaces, complete with a tv/monitor for students to use for group study and USB/electrical charging stations in the small storage lockers available for use. Need a whiteboard while sitting in the comfy chairs? No problem, just roll a small one over. Need a small private area for group work? No problem, you can either go to a glass-enclosed room or sit at one of the small tables! Don't forget, there's still spaces for your professor to reserve an interactive classroom.
After dinner, we were off again to finish our drive to State College and send the night at a Hampton Inn.