Houston’s Rice University has opened the largest research facility on its core campus: the $152 million Ralph S. O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science.
Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the 251,400-sf, five-story O’Connor Building provides students and researchers with state-of-the-art laboratories, classrooms, offices, and a cafe, in addition to multiple gathering spaces. On the top level, a multipurpose event space with an outdoor terrace offers views of the campus and the Houston skyline.
A five-story central atrium serves as an activity hub, connecting to seminar rooms, break areas, and informal gathering spaces. On the atrium’s ground level, a transparent glass façade displays this activity to the larger campus. At the building’s main entrance, brick walls and a fritted glass wall frame a cantilevered sculptural stair.
Passive and Active Design Strategies for Research Facilities
SOM’s design intends to foster collaboration in four research areas: advanced materials, quantum science and computing, urban research and innovation, and the energy transition. Promoting this interaction, the stair tower and the central hub connect a series of stepped double-height collaboration areas on different levels. Conference rooms and break areas offer more opportunities for informal learning and connection.
In line with the historic campus’s aesthetics, the O’Connor Building’s façade features brick and punched windows with angled brick pilasters and fins. Along the western edge, a covered arcade is shaded by a brick and stone veil. The arcade veil comprises alternating bands of brick and cast-stone modules, with rotated bricks in between, so light can enter between the gaps.
Both passive and active design strategies include maximizing daylight, strategic placement of the angled pilasters and vertical fins, and the use of skylights to soften the strong Texas sun. As a result of the passive design strategies, as well as an energy-efficient HVAC and lighting system, the laboratories use 50% less energy than a comparable research space.
On the Building Team:
Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Structural engineer: IMEG Corp.
Local architect, programmer, laboratory planner: Scientia Architects
Lab consultant: Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc.
Civil engineering: Walter P Moore
Mechanical, electrical, plumbing: Wylie
Landscape: OJB Landscape Architecture
Contractor: Anslow-Bryant Construction
Related Stories
| Jun 12, 2014
Austrian university develops 'inflatable' concrete dome method
Constructing a concrete dome is a costly process, but this may change soon. A team from the Vienna University of Technology has developed a method that allows concrete domes to form with the use of air and steel cables instead of expensive, timber supporting structures.
| Jun 11, 2014
5 ways Herman Miller's new office concept rethinks the traditional workplace
Today's technologies allow us to work anywhere. So why come to an office at all? Herman Miller has an answer.
| Jun 9, 2014
6 design strategies for integrating living and learning on campus
Higher education is rapidly evolving. As we use planning and design to help our clients navigate major shifts in culture, technology, and funding, it is essential to focus on strategies that help foster an education that is relevant after graduation. One way to promote relevance is to strengthen the bond between academic disciplines and the campus residential life experience.
| May 29, 2014
7 cost-effective ways to make U.S. infrastructure more resilient
Moving critical elements to higher ground and designing for longer lifespans are just some of the ways cities and governments can make infrastructure more resilient to natural disasters and climate change, writes Richard Cavallaro, President of Skanska USA Civil.
Sponsored | | May 27, 2014
Grim Hall opens the door to fire safety with fire-rated ceramic glass
For the renovation of Lincoln University’s Grim Hall life sciences building into a state-of-the-art computer facility, Tevebaugh Associates worked to provide students and faculty with improved life safety protection. Updating the 1925-era facility's fire-rated doors was an important component of the project.
| May 20, 2014
Kinetic Architecture: New book explores innovations in active façades
The book, co-authored by Arup's Russell Fortmeyer, illustrates the various ways architects, consultants, and engineers approach energy and comfort by manipulating air, water, and light through the layers of passive and active building envelope systems.
| May 19, 2014
What can architects learn from nature’s 3.8 billion years of experience?
In a new report, HOK and Biomimicry 3.8 partnered to study how lessons from the temperate broadleaf forest biome, which houses many of the world’s largest population centers, can inform the design of the built environment.
| May 13, 2014
19 industry groups team to promote resilient planning and building materials
The industry associations, with more than 700,000 members generating almost $1 trillion in GDP, have issued a joint statement on resilience, pushing design and building solutions for disaster mitigation.
| May 11, 2014
Final call for entries: 2014 Giants 300 survey
BD+C's 2014 Giants 300 survey forms are due Wednesday, May 21. Survey results will be published in our July 2014 issue. The annual Giants 300 Report ranks the top AEC firms in commercial construction, by revenue.
| May 10, 2014
How your firm can gain an edge on university projects
Top administrators from five major universities describe how they are optimizing value on capital expenditures, financing, and design trends—and how their AEC partners can better serve them and other academic clients.
