The main research center is housed within a long 200 meter structure, framed by engineered timber trusses and CLT floors to reduce the building’s carbon footprint, and shaded along its entire roof and long southern exposure by a photo-voltaic brise-soleil to take advantage of the indefatigable desert sun. Power captured by the arrays is retained by a battery on the lower level, and is scaled to power the entire facility’s operations, including the robust lab ventilation system. The long bar also creates a broad shadow throughout the day, allowing for comparably temperate spaces, indoor and out, on the Northern side of the building. For this reason, the offices—a mixture of interior, glazed volumes and open overlooks for communal gatherings—flank the Northern edge of the building, overlooking the laboratory floor and main visitor hall to the South, and the outside desert terrain and employee residences to the North. Recreational programs, such as the gym, sun deck, and infinity pool, are housed within a centrally located steel frame which bisects the main laboratory bar, asserting itself as a key programmatic interstice between the otherwise residential, educational, scientific, and managerial domains of the facility.

Potable water is stored on-site in a subterranean cistern, located directly beneath the permeable ground of the sunken outdoor visitor plaza. This siting allows the plaza to function during the occasional rain event as an extension of the surrounding terrain’s natural arroyos: encouraging increased rainwater collection and natural filtration via the adjacent hillside xeriscapes. The sunken courtyard not only provides a basin for water retention, but also creates shade for outdoor activities such as restaurant dining and amphitheater seating for the arena. Additionally, it allows for lower level programs such as the restaurant, training center, and main laboratory to be set into the topography and take advantage of the Earth’s thermal mass for passive cooling. Clerestory glazing and multi-story ceilings in the sunken spaces encourage cross-ventilation, and draw in soft, diffused light: ideal conditions for classroom and training environments.