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Edmund D. Bossone Research Enterprise Center, Drexel University

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Completed 2005

Research and laboratory building
 

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The Edmund D. Bossone Research Enterprise Center is designed to create a powerful architectural statement reflecting Drexel University's presence in the vanguard of technology research and education. The program combines 80,000 s/f of new construction with 70,000 s/f of renovated space within the adjacent Commonwealth Hall, creating an integrated facility for multidisciplinary research. The new facility serves to achieve synergy among researchers, the student body, and the surrounding scientific and corporate communities.

The new facility, situated at the gateway to the Drexel campus, was designed to coordinate with campus master planning efforts to strengthen the reading of Drexel as an urban campus, combining strong street frontage with landscaped mid-block gathering spaces for visitors, students, and staff. The main entry to the building off Market Street is provided by a seven-story, north-facing public atrium, reinforcing the definition of the street while beckoning visitors as a grand entrance to the new facility.

Major programmatic components at the ground level include a 280-seat lecture hall and reception area, student cafe, exhibition lab, and electron microscope suite. Penetrating the atrium at the upper three levels from the south, the primary body of the new lab program is oriented perpendicular to the diagonal axis of historic Lancaster Avenue and set back from the Peck Alumni Center, which is located on the adjacent site to the west and originally designed as a bank by Frank Furness. The resulting exterior space bordered by the public atrium, lab wing, and Peck Alumni Center provides an upper-level outdoor terrace overlooking the main entry atrium to the north and a landscaped garden to the south.

Internally, the new and renovated laboratories at the upper levels provides flexible, state-of-the-art lab space organized around a three-story skylit private atrium, creating a common gathering space for the building's users and focusing the horizontal and vertical circulation in a manner that facilitates a sense of community within the building and informal interaction among faculty, students, and staff.

Major Components

Laboratory complex with "wet" and "dry" labs for multidisciplinary research, as well as computer-based telemetry stations for data gathering and analysis; 7-story public atrium; 3-story private atrium; 280-seat lecture hall; student cafe; electron microscope suite; outdoor terrace

Pei Cobb Freed & Partners services

Full Architectural Services through Design Development; Construction Documents and Construction Administration for the exterior envelope

Architect of Record

Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann & Associates, Philadelphia, PA

Structural

Cagley Harman & Associates, King of Prussia, PA

Mechanical

Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann & Associates, Philadelphia, PA

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