New Science Labs Open

CENTERBROOK, Conn. -- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a nonprofit research and educational institution on Long Island, dedicated six new research buildings on June 12, 2009. The 100,000-square-foot Hillside Research Complex expands the lab’s active research space by 40 percent and encourages collaboration between scientists from different disciplines, enhancing the potential of scientific discovery.

Partner Jim Childress, FAIA, designed the project with Partner Emeritus Bill Grover, FAIA and Todd Andrews, AIA, who was the Project Manager. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has been a Centerbrook client since 1974.

To preserve the idyllic nature of the nearly 120-acre campus, the buildings were designed to complement the campus’s smaller, historic buildings. The new laboratories are outcroppings of a single interconnected structure -- whose infrastructure is integrated underground -- giving the appearance of six discrete buildings. Nestled into a hillside, the complex will be 30% more energy-efficient than current laboratory standards.

Completion ushers in an exciting new era of research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a world leader in biomedical research and education. The complex includes:

- The Leslie and Jean Quick Laboratory, designed for researchers striving to pinpoint the genetics of cancer

- The William L. and Marjorie A. Matheson Laboratory, dedicated to searching for improved methods of cancer diagnosis and therapy

- The Wendt Family Laboratory

- The Donald E. Axinn Laboratory, built to support researchers studying the neurobiological roots of mental illness

-The Nancy and Frederick DeMatteis Laboratory, where scientists will try to understand the fundamental building blocks of human genetics and apply their findings to the treatment of genetic diseases, including cancer, autism, and schizophrenia

- The David H. Koch Laboratory, home to a newly established Center for Quantitative Biology, where an interdisciplinary team of top mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists will develop computational models to interpret and understand complex datasets generated by the lab’s experiments.