Building Teams that include designer LMN Architects are on pace to complete two new science labs at Washington State in Pullman and Eastern Washington University in Cheney by the fall of 2020.
The 80,300-sf five-story Plant Sciences Building at Washington State integrates several disciplines from the College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Resources. It also provides new infrastructure for the Institute of Biological Chemistry, along with labs that bring together faculty and students in plant biochemistry, pathology, horticulture, and crop-and-soil sciences into one facility.
This L-shaped building, which should be completed by October, is the fourth within a master plan for the university’s Research and Education complex, which LMN originally designed back in 2005. The new facility will be the social and interdisciplinary hub of the complex, and has been designed for flexibility to meet the university’s future needs, including an interior arrangement of modular lab spaces that can support research over time.
The exterior of the building features a high-performance concrete façade panel system clad in red-brick veneer.
At Eastern Washington University, the new 102,700-sf Interdisciplinary Science Center for physics, chemistry, biology, and geology will be connected to an existing Science Building Center by two enclosed pedestrian bridges.
The four-level Interdisciplnary Science Center at Eastern Washington University will connect with an existing Science Building Center.
Inside the building, laboratory instrument exhibits and educational displays are integrated along its central corridor walls. Outside the building, the landscape design was crafted in close collaboration between the design team and teaching faculty, and features significant local geologic specimens along site walls and native plant species arrayed among the building’s various micro-climates.
This four-level building, too, is clad with a panelized red-brick façade system, accentuated with a subtle mix of cascading glazed surfaces. Inside, labs flank either side of corridors on all floors. A lecture hall on level 1 is positioned into the building’s sloping site and forms a terminus of that level in the hillside.
Sustainable strategies include low-flow fume hoods and heat recovery pipes, rainwater harvesting, xeriscaping and inclusion of botanical and geological landscape elements that serve as teaching tools. The building is targeting LEED Gold certification.
The Plant Sciences Building’s design and construction team includes LMN Architects (architect), Coughlin Porter Lundeen (CE), Skanska USA Building (GC and CM), Berger Partnership (landscape architect), MW Consulting Engineers (MEP, lighting design), and Magnusson Klemencic Associates (SE).
The same Building Team is working on the Interdisciplinary Science Center with the exception of Lydig Construction providing GC and CM services.
Related Stories
| Nov 3, 2014
An ancient former post office in Portland, Ore., provides an even older art college with a new home
About seven years ago, The Pacific Northwest College of Art, the oldest art college in Portland, was evaluating its master plan with an eye towards expanding and upgrading its campus facilities. A board member brought to the attention of the college a nearby 134,000-sf building that had once served as the city’s original post office.
| Oct 16, 2014
Perkins+Will white paper examines alternatives to flame retardant building materials
The white paper includes a list of 193 flame retardants, including 29 discovered in building and household products, 50 found in the indoor environment, and 33 in human blood, milk, and tissues.
| Oct 15, 2014
Harvard launches ‘design-centric’ center for green buildings and cities
The impetus behind Harvard's Center for Green Buildings and Cities is what the design school’s dean, Mohsen Mostafavi, describes as a “rapidly urbanizing global economy,” in which cities are building new structures “on a massive scale.”
| Oct 14, 2014
Proven 6-step approach to treating historic windows
This course provides step-by-step prescriptive advice to architects, engineers, and contractors on when it makes sense to repair or rehabilitate existing windows, and when they should advise their building owner clients to consider replacement.
| Oct 12, 2014
AIA 2030 commitment: Five years on, are we any closer to net-zero?
This year marks the fifth anniversary of the American Institute of Architects’ effort to have architecture firms voluntarily pledge net-zero energy design for all their buildings by 2030.
| Sep 24, 2014
Architecture billings see continued strength, led by institutional sector
On the heels of recording its strongest pace of growth since 2007, there continues to be an increasing level of demand for design services signaled in the latest Architecture Billings Index.
| Sep 22, 2014
4 keys to effective post-occupancy evaluations
Perkins+Will's Janice Barnes covers the four steps that designers should take to create POEs that provide design direction and measure design effectiveness.
| Sep 22, 2014
Sound selections: 12 great choices for ceilings and acoustical walls
From metal mesh panels to concealed-suspension ceilings, here's our roundup of the latest acoustical ceiling and wall products.
| Sep 17, 2014
New hub on campus: Where learning is headed and what it means for the college campus
It seems that the most recent buildings to pop up on college campuses are trying to do more than just support academics. They are acting as hubs for all sorts of on-campus activities, writes Gensler's David Broz.
