Poised at the eastern threshold of Penn’s campus, the Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology transforms a former bus parking lot on Walnut Street into an iconic and welcoming new gateway to the University. The crystalline form of the laboratory emerges from the site to create a new multi-level research building that expresses the University’s leadership in the emerging field of nanotechnology. The building and landscape together extends Penn’s tradition of locating academic buildings around clearly defined quads. By turning the internally focused paradigm of laboratory buildings inside out, the Singh Center orients the labs around a central courtyard, revealing the research inside to the University, and bringing natural light into both the public spaces and secured research labs. An ascending gallery of public space includes generous stairways with collaborative lounges that mediate the twenty-foot climb between each floor level. The exterior of this gallery is defined by acid-etched glass that brings dappled light into lower-level research areas as well as the upper three levels of the building. An ascending route that begins twenty feet below the courtyard ascends to a Forum space that cantilevers 65 feet over the courtyard below to offer extraordinary views of the campus and city. ...
Poised at the eastern threshold of Penn’s campus, the Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology transforms a former bus parking lot on Walnut Street into an iconic and welcoming new gateway to the University. The crystalline form of the laboratory emerges from the site to create a new multi-level research building that expresses the University’s leadership in the emerging field of nanotechnology. The building and landscape together extends Penn’s tradition of locating academic buildings around clearly defined quads. By turning the internally focused paradigm of laboratory buildings inside out, the Singh Center orients the labs around a central courtyard, revealing the research inside to the University, and bringing natural light into both the public spaces and secured research labs. An ascending gallery of public space includes generous stairways with collaborative lounges that mediate the twenty-foot climb between each floor level. The exterior of this gallery is defined by acid-etched glass that brings dappled light into lower-level research areas as well as the upper three levels of the building. An ascending route that begins twenty feet below the courtyard ascends to a Forum space that cantilevers 65 feet over the courtyard below to offer extraordinary views of the campus and city. ...