Why Put the Lab Underground?
Instead of placing the new building above ground on a tight site between two existing buildings, the SRG design team suggested putting the lab beneath a new public plaza. By building the Lokey Laboratory underground, the design created a new much-needed public plaza for the Science Complex; directly connected the facility to adjoining science buildings, which enabled staff and students to move seamlessly across the complex; and ensured optimum performance of the twenty highly-specialized, vibration and temperature-sensitive nanoscale imaging instruments located in the lab.
The Laboratory contains semiconductor, photolithography, nanofabrication and bio-optics labs. These instrument labs all surround a central, skylit collaboration area that brings together research faculty from a variety of disciplines across the science complex, including materials science, molecular biology, genomics, geology, neuroscience and optics.
