🔒UMaine’s aims for fall opening of ‘Factory of the Future’

Consigli Construction Co. is nearing completion on the 45,000-square-foot addition to the University of Maine at Orono’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center. The GEM building, formerly known as the Green Engineering and Materials building, will be home to the university’s Factory of the Future. It will incorporate innovative digital manufacturing technologies and immersive learning spaces for students across the University of Maine System. The building will provide a large-format hybrid manufacturing test bed for entrepreneurs and companies. It's designed to facilitate advances in creating affordable housing and marine vessels, along with renewable energy and civil infrastructure components.

The facility will be equipped with AI-enabled 3D printers and advanced computational tools, optimized through real-time monitoring, digital twin technology and augmented and virtual reality. Interior spaces will include a conference learning center, research-collaborative learning spaces, a welcome center and staff offices. The $82 million building is designed by SMRT Architects & Engineers, in partnership with Thornton Tomasetti, both based in Portland, and the architecture firm Grimshaw, whjich has offices in Los Angeles, New York and six international locations.

Another mass timber project for Consigli

The GEM building is built primarily of glulam and cross-laminated mass timber, construction materials with which Consigli’s Portland office has 15 years of experience. Recent projects in Maine have included the Barry Mills Hall and the John and Lile Gibbons Center for Arctic Studies at Bowdoin College, and the Crewe Center for the Arts on the University of Southern Maine’s Portland campus. Northeastern University’s Roux Institute campus incorporates the materials, and Consigli is planning to build the Portland Museum of Arts’ new 60,000-square-foot wing, using mass timber. Consigli reports that the GEM building is now fully enclosed and “dust-free,” an important condition milestone for the manufacturing space. Interior fit-out work is advancing across the space, including mechanical, electric and plumbing systems, as well as ongoing commissioning activities in both the north and south bays. Three Gantry cranes — each weighing roughly 41,000 pounds — were recently installed in the north bay to eventually support the world’s largest polymer 3D printer. System startups, testing and commissioning, sitework and addressing interior punch-list items will continue throughout the summer. Substantial completion for the entire building is targeted for August, with an anticipated opening date in the fall.