It may not be springtime yet, but nanotechnology centers are sprouting up all over.

Last week arizona state university opened its Center for Nanotechnology in Society (pictured) with a $6.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The center is a collaboration between the university's Biodesign Institute and its Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, a group within the ASU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Last October saw the opening of Purdue University's $58 million Birck Nanotechnology Center, site of this week's National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) at Five Years conference.

Meanwhile, construction continues on the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies Core Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory (this link features a very nice 3D animated fly-by of the proposed building as well as photos of the building under construction.)

The President's 2007 budget released this week includes funding for yet another center, providing $8 million to expand the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI). ONAMI is a research collaboration between Oregon State University, Portland State University, the University of Oregon and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, as well as a number of private partners.

Dean of OSU's College of Engineering Ron Adams likened the development of nanotechnology to the gold rush. "First a technique had to be developed to test if you actually had gold," Adams said. "With this funding we will be able to develop techniques to see what we have in front of us."

OSU President Ed Ray added, "Funding further nanotechnology research is key to helping America become more competitive in one of the most exciting and rapidly expanding areas of scientific inquiry today."

These centers add to the over 100 nanotechnology centers already in operation in the US. Granted, some of these centers are just networks of people, rather than shiny new buildings, but the building boom in nanotech labs and research centers in the last five years has been remarkable. Seems like every university wants one. And that desire poses a bit of an architectural dilemma for campus architects too. Is the brick-and-ivy look really appropriate for a nanotech building? The folks at the University of Loiusville, among many others, seem to think so.

Purdue even hosted a conference dedicated exclusively to the design of nanotech centers this week, the Buildings for Advanced Technology Workshop. It's the third in a series, and as its organizers explain, "Now that a first wave of technical facilities has been designed and many have been constructed, this third workshop focuses on the results achieved and the lessons learned."