The Waksman Institute of Microbiology is an interdisciplinary research institute founded in 1951 by Dr. Selman Waksman, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist and microbiologist who discovered several antibiotics. The institute focuses on fundamental questions in microbial, animal, and plant research, while continuing to push the frontiers of scientific discovery.

The institute is spread across a complex of three buildings—yet these buildings are aesthetically disconnected by their size and style differences as well as the divergent materials in which they were constructed. We were hired to build an addition that would act as a “punctuation mark” to distract from the visual detachment of the  three buildings, while also providing state-of-the-art laboratory spaces within.

The addition we designed led to the creation of three seemingly separate open lab rooms that were connected by interior hallways. These hallways also lead to support spaces and other core facilities in the Waksman complex that provide scientists with access to state-of-the-art instrumentation and technology.