Project Details
- Project Name
- Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building
- Location
-
3250 Cherstnut St.
PA ,United States
- Architect
- Diamond Schmitt Architects
- Client/Owner
- Drexel University
- Project Types
- Education
- Project Scope
- New Construction
- Size
- 150,000 sq. feet
- Year Completed
- 2011
- Shared by
-
Communications Manager,Diamond Schmitt Architects
- Certifications & Designations
- LEED Gold
- Project Status
- Built
Project Description
Located at the corner of Chestnut and 33rd in Philadelphia, the Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building provides a gateway building for Drexel University. Organized around a five storey atrium, the building contains 32 state-of-the-art research labs, 8 teaching labs as well as specialized computer and paleontology laboratories. In addition to the laboratory wings, there are 40 faculty offices looking southwest on Woodlawn Walk. At the ground floor, seven classrooms and a 200-seat auditorium provide teaching space for the Biology Department and the wider university community.
Student and faculty lounges on every floor, dubbed 'collaboratories' provide opportunities for meetings and small gatherings and are contained in a projecting glass volume on Chestnut Avenue. The Integrated Sciences Building possesses a high degree of internal transparency, harvests natural light to the labs with expansive windows and the skylit atrium. The building, clad in Indiana limestone, and the elliptical glass volume of the lounges marking the principal entry, establish a new presence for Drexel in the academic hub of Philadelphia.
The limestone-clad building is LEED Gold certified, the first LEED building at Drexel. A prominent feature of it sustainable design is the 75-foot-high biofilter living wall, an innovation first introduced in commercial use by Diamond Schmitt Architects. This is the largest living wall on a U.S. campus and its functionality is part of the curriculum at the school.
