-By Danine Alati. Photography by Farshid Assassi and Richard Payne

Banishing the big box, dark, and isolated research laboratories of the past, Berkebile Nelson Immenschuh McDowell Architects (BNIM) in Kansas City, Mo., broke out of this stifling norm with its design of The Fayez S. Sarofim Research Building, home of the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM) at The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.

With the idea of incorporating light, views, sustainable strategies, and spots for interaction, BMIN created a 229,000-sq.-ft. building—including wet and dry research laboratories, administrative offices, conference rooms, discussion spaces, a 200-seat auditorium, ambient social spaces, and a large atrium for social events—that achieves the necessary functionality in a building that is pleasant to look at and treads lightly on the environment.

Dr. Irma Gigli, deputy director at IMM and client representative, says that from her perspective, the goals of this project had a European sensibility. Having worked in Germany for years, she learned that R&D facilities there "had more elements of humanity for workers" than similar buildings in the United States, where many laboratories don't have any windows. "In Germany, every space assigned to a human being has to have windows—including laboratories. There they are very conscious of balancing the needs of the people with the work that they do," she explains. "And while we don't want to be wasteful in terms of space allocation, we want enough space so that inside and outside can easily interact without disturbing the activities that must take place." So the mission became establishing an atmosphere of collaborative research based on intellectual interaction.

The design of the building itself evolved out of a highly collaborative process between the architecture firm and the client team, headed by Gigli, who had a clear sense of what she wanted. Goals were delineated through a series of meetings supervised by the University of Texas, taking place every other week for more than a year. The emerging solution was based on the concept of five species with five distinct parts of a complex structure housing specific functions: the institute gateway, laboratories, offices, commons, and service building.

The layout is designed with two wings—one housing laboratories on floors three through six, the other for researchers' offices occupying the same floors—surrounding a grand atrium and linked by a series of open walkways and bridges. The central, daylit atrium or "Hall of Discovery," is part of the institute gateway, along with the auditorium, lobby, conference center, administrative offices, gardens, and outdoor breezeway—all public spaces designed to foster dialogue among building users. Commons areas include circulation and connection spaces, such as stairways, lobbies on each floor, elevators, restrooms, outdoor terraces, and walkways. The service building houses storage, the loading dock, utility and service areas, mechanical space, and future research support spaces.

"Researchers tend to isolate themselves," notes Mark Shapiro, AIA, LEED AP, principal at BNIM. "In this building, we promote the idea of informal interaction by separating laboratories and offices and connecting them with interactive, social spaces in between." Not only does the atrium bring in natural light, but Shapiro says, "We wanted it to read like an exterior space," so the architects brought the exterior elements inside. Durable terracotta panels create a rainscreen and resilient exterior skin, while terracotta baguettes shade outdoor spaces. Zinc wall panels protect the rainscreen system and act as shading devices, while copper panels clad the service building and complement the zinc and terracotta palette. Use of these materials, along with abundant high-performance glass and aluminum-framed windows, continues on the interior (the office wing facing the atrium features terracotta, and labs incorporate zinc) to blur the lines between inside and out and create a holistic project among the five species.

The new IMM structure was created so that interiors could be updated while the façade is maintained and would patina appropriately over the years. "We selected 'healing' products that would oxidize through the years, but not be susceptible to erosion," Shapiro explains. The selection of long-lasting, natural materials will allow IMM to stand as a 100-year building. "We tend to forget the history of science—the history of art we remember, but not of science," Gigli says. "But buildings that remain through the decades bring with them this history." Shapiro adds, "The idea was to accommodate the current program, with built-in flexibility."

Highly involved in the selection of materials, Gigli is overwhelmingly satisfied with the building's palette. "The architects were very responsive to what we said," Gigli recalls. "There was a lot of back and forth between the administration, the architects, and the contractors, and some unfortunate compromises had to be made." But Gigli quickly adds that she greatly enjoyed working with the architects and is pleased with how the resulting building is being used. One such compromise that occurred was in terms of LEED certification. Although the decision was made by the administration to not seek LEED certification, 90 percent of the sustainable strategies remained in place, according to Shapiro, as many project goals and design solutions were aligned with LEED standards, such as the use of long-lasting materials, the inclusion of abundant high-performance glass to permit daylighting, and the employment of low-energy-consumption strategies that are expected to use 20 to 25 percent less energy than the ASHRAE baseline for similar buildings.

A highly efficient mechanical system is in place to reuse air, thereby reducing energy load for air circulation. Air first circulates within offices, then part of it recirculates within the offices and filters through the atrium. While laboratory air can only be used once, this air supply comes from available clean office area return air, mixed with a high percentage of fresh outside air for high-quality ventilation. Besides extensive use of daylighting (building orientation is positioned for optimal solar penetration), motion sensors control supplementary lighting, cladding and finishes are all low-VOC emitting, and the rainscreen cladding creates a building skin that reduces energy loss and gain. Overall, BNIM carefully made eco-friendly design decisions that would best serve the goals of IMM.

"We tried to provide within the incredibly dense site a sense of amenity—in the form of a nice garden and water features to offer a sense of respite," Shapiro says. "We feel that we designed a building that will not only house the existing institute, but we also planned for expansion of the building and future long-term goals."