Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact, Building 2, University of Oregon
with ZGF Architects
The Phil and Penny Knight Campus Building 2 demonstrates how high-performance laboratory design can support groundbreaking research while reducing environmental impact. Atelier Ten led the project’s sustainability, energy and benchmarking strategy, developing integrated performance goals that support LEED Gold and the University’s sustainability goals.
Designed to support scientific discovery and collaboration between researchers, students, and industry partners, the project promotes occupant wellbeing through connections to daylight, nature, and the public realm. The four-story laboratory building doubles the campus’s research capacity with lab suites, a vivarium, innovation spaces. Through analyses of solar exposure, daylight, façade performance, water use, and embodied carbon, Atelier Ten helped shape a high-performance laboratory environment that balances operational efficiency with occupant comfort.
Atelier Ten worked alongside the design team to develop external shading strategies that improve visual comfort for occupants while reducing peak solar loads within the interior spaces. Paying homage to the research within, the high performance façades are designed to mimic the titanium scaffold bone implants developed in the Knight Campus’s human performance labs. Atelier Ten worked with ZGF to optimize the façade’s window-to-wall ratios, shading, canopies and faceted fins for comfort and efficiency. Through a combination of daylight harvesting and efficient HVAC design, the project achieves 40% energy savings.
Atelier Ten also led the LEED Administration scope for the project. It is targeting LEED Gold certification.
Renderings courtesy of ZGF, created by MIR