The James I. Swen­son Sci­ence Build­ing for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta at Duluth is sit­u­at­ed on one of the entry roads into cam­pus with the Port of Duluth and Lake Supe­ri­or pro­vid­ing a spec­tac­u­lar back­drop for the state-of-the-art facil­i­ty. The build­ing com­pris­es inter dis­ci­pli­nary research and teach­ing lab­o­ra­to­ries for Chem­istry, Fresh Water Ecol­o­gy and Biology. 

The pro­gram includes 16 under­grad­u­ate instruc­tion­al lab­o­ra­to­ries for 2100 stu­dents and 16 research lab­o­ra­to­ries for fac­ul­ty and post­doc­tor­al researchers. The build­ing also hous­es offices for fac­ul­ty, grad­u­ate and post­grad­u­ate stu­dents, and the Biol­o­gy department’s administration. 

Exte­ri­or mate­ri­als: brick, stone, corten and wood were select­ed for their his­toric and eco­nom­ic impor­tance to the Min­neso­ta north­land. Teach­ing and research labs are day lit and include lab fur­ni­ture and fin­ish­es fea­tur­ing nat­ur­al, local­ly found mate­ri­als, par­tic­u­lar­ly larch and oak wood. 

A wild rice research lab­o­ra­to­ry built into the water­shed cre­ates a front yard and an out­door learn­ing space. The teach­ing and research wings join in a two sto­ry ​“Sci­ence Liv­ing Room” where stu­dents and teach­ers can inter­act in a space with spec­tac­u­lar views of Lake Supe­ri­or. A spi­ral out­door stair con­nects the Liv­ing Room to the wild rice out­door classroom.

Client: Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta Duluth
Pro­gram: Aca­d­e­m­ic teach­ing and research lab­o­ra­to­ry
Size: 108,000 sqft
Cost: $30,000,000

Select­ed Awards/​Honors:
Design Award of Excel­lence, Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Land­scape Archi­tects, Min­neso­ta, 2007.
Mer­it Award, Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Land­scape Archi­tects, 2007.
Design Mer­it Award for Unbuilt Works, Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Land­scape Archi­tects, Min­neso­ta, 2005.

Col­lab­o­ra­tive Part­ners:
Affil­i­at­ed Engi­neers (ME Engi­neer)
Korn­berg Asso­ciates Archi­tects (Lab Plan­ning)
Mey­er Borgman & John­son (Struc­tur­al Engi­neer)
MSA/RREM (Civ­il Engi­neer)
Oslund and Asso­ciates (Land­scape Archi­tect)
Sta­nius John­son Archi­tects (Asso­ciate Architect)

Pho­tog­ra­phy Cred­it: © Steve Hall, Hedrich Blessing