The University of Puerto Rico selected RMJM for the design of the new 28,000 m² Molecular Sciences Complex. The laboratory research complex serves as the first of a series of buildings that will form a new science park at the entrance to the University’s botanical gardens.
The facility promotes a contemporary vision for grant-based research programs at the University by fostering interdisciplinary and collaborative research in a state-of-the-art environment, and enables new, thematic research programs between the College of Natural Sciences and Medical School focused on molecular biology.
The facility responds to a master plan to restore the University’s botanical gardens as a vital and integral part of botanical research. The gardens support horticultural research with indigenous plants and ecology in a tropical environment.
The restoration of the gardens as an important cultural resource also serves to reestablish human connections between this unique place and the urban scale of San Juan.
The Molecular Sciences Complex serves as a bridge between discontinuities in the urban fabric surrounding the gardens. It is an important icon for urban renewal, as well as for scientific research. In response to its prominent location and vision, the complex includes environmentally sustainable design features as an example of ecological sensitivity.
Passive and active technologies are incorporated into a facility that responds to the strict demands of scientific research while also responding to its local ecology and environment.