The Interdisciplinary Science & Technology Building
VII (ISTB7), designed by Grimshaw Architects and
local fi rm Architekton, is the latest addition to the
interdisciplinary science and research district at
Arizona State University's Tempe campus. ISTB7
will off er state-of the art laboratories, classrooms,
conference rooms and a new lecture hall to a constantly
evolving research base at ASU.
The building’s form is the result of a rigorous design
eff ort to negotiate site and climatic conditions unique
to this project. The existing site features an active
canal waterway, a hospital nitrogen line, campus gas,
steam, and water lines and is also adjacent to light
rail tracks, a light rail station and one of the busiest
vehicular intersections in the state of Arizona. In
response, the building, sited at the gateway corner of
campus, opens at the ground level to maximize wind,
light, air and pedestrian fl ow into the central courtyard.
A regenerative landscape strives to unite the whole
project, creating a new gateway to the campus for
the community, grounding the building in its Sonoran
Desert and agricultural roots, solving circulation
challenges across multiple modes of transportation and
honoring a site rich in Tempe history.
ISTB7 will become home to a set of resident institutes
with a wide range of research specialties, including
the Global Institute of Sustainability, Institute for
Human Origins, Global Futures Initiative and the
School of Sustainability. The building was designed
to maximize resources that could be shared by these
groups, such as conference rooms, classrooms, break
rooms and teaching laboratories, while tailoring more
programmatically unique spaces – such as narrowlyfocused
research laboratories and a high bay laboratory
– to individual need. ISTB7 interestingly features no
"front door"; rather the main programmatic spaces
wrap around a central courtyard, aff ectionately called
the ELAB (Exhibit-Laboratory-Auditorium-Biome),
that serves as the central welcoming point.
When completed in April, ISTB7 will be a strategic link
between the research base at Arizona State University
and the rest of the Tempe community, off ering stateof-
the art research facilities and a new campus amenity
rooted in resiliency, site-specifi city and inspiration.