Balancing private research with campus life.
While the building is highly secure, it also serves as a campus connector between MU’s extensive on-campus research community, outside industry partners, MU Health Care, and the MU Veterinary Health Center. This connection entails both public and private functions that filter through the facility’s ground level lobby in the Innovation Center. The design accommodates diverse user groups and functional requirements while still maintaining a collegiate atmosphere.
Therefore, the design for this public/private lobby level is unique in the way internal programmatic spaces are organized. A café, a 2D visualization center and a large seminar room are arranged in the middle of the lobby level, like islands of space floating in a continuous perimeter of circulation and lounge areas, that informally connect building users to discreet public spaces, a protective two-story lobby colonnade, and surrounding campus amenities like a terraced outdoor plaza and green space. This creates a very open, inviting first impression for an otherwise secure facility that still accommodates campus functions along with separate entrances for distinct user groups.
