Campus construction

Medical Sciences Building, Center for Academic Research Excellence

Projected completion date: Phase I - late 2007

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Construction changes face of East Campus

A dazzling new look -- and some of the most technically advanced laboratory and teaching space in the nation -- will welcome visitors to the University of Cincinnati's medical campus by the end of 2008. Comprehensive renovation is already under way inside the Medical Sciences Building, and its west face soon will be linked by a nine-story glass atrium to a new Center for Academic Research Excellence (CARE).

Eden Quadrangle is the name of a new open space designed by Hargreaves Associates to complement the expanded Medical Science Building. It will contain granite seat walls and steps, a water feature, a large plaza, an outdoor amphitheater, open lawn spaces and lots of trees. "This is going to be an incredible project," says Len Thomas of the University Architect's Office. "It will create a transformation to the streetscape along Sabin Way."

MSB's redesign involves updating research labs; improving educational, administrative and library spaces; and constructing the CARE addition: a 239,000-square-foot facility with six floors of state-of-the-art laboratories for use by graduate students, faculty and researchers. The laboratories will be highly flexible to allow easy adaptation to future science and technology uses.

Designers paid careful attention not only to high-tech qualities, but also to "humanistic elements" that nurture innovative thinking, scholarly collaboration and scientific discovery among researchers and students. Informal gathering spaces, such as breakout and study-group rooms, a fitness center, lounges, a bookstore, food-service area and the light-filled atrium are planned to stimulate exchange of ideas. The Health Sciences Library will also undergo a significant upgrade and adopt a new multi-level layout, with open stairways and vertical connections that promote interaction.

"Even as we look forward to its (MSB/CARE) completion, we know that we will rapidly outgrow the capacity it provides," says Medical Center provost Jane Henney. "We are now involved in our next phase of planning -- future place and space needs of the East Campus."

Architects: Studio Architecture of San Francisco with HarleyEllis, Cincinnati
(The design for MSB/CARE won the 2002 American Architecture Award, Chicago Athenaeum, Museum of Architecture and Design.)
Project cost, Phase I: $177 million.

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