The Iowa Institute for Biomedical Discovery (IIBD) is the third building of the Biomedical Research Center on the University of Iowa Health Science Campus. The new facility will house laboratories and office space dedicated to cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary research in the biomedical and life sciences, involving scientists from across the entire campus. It is part of a larger university effort to bring together scientists from multiple disciplines to pursue research leading to new treatments for patients, create new educational opportunities for students, and bolster Iowa’s economy through new jobs and business partnerships.
The focus of this ten level 210,000 square-foot structure will be interdisciplinary research in the broad areas of neuroscience, aging and regenerative medicine. It will also provide advanced imaging capabilities for humans and large animals. The facility includes wet research laboratories, office space, vivarium, meeting spaces, café and support facilities.
Together with the two earlier buildings of the Biomedical Research Center, the new building forms a “U” plan configuration, overlooking the University campus. Closing the “U” and defining a new quadrangle is an open “cloister” walkway below an enclosed 220 foot long second level walkway connection containing a linear exhibition gallery. The “cloister” also provides a backdrop for a memorial reflection garden honoring the donor of the previous building that occupied the site and allows both interaction and connection with the entire researcher community.
The complex’s existing material pallet of buff colored Iowa limestone, grey blue granite, green patinated copper, and metallic grey aluminum window framing with glass and panel infill is maintained in the IIBD building. Facing the campus, the east façade presents an iconic reference, articulated by vertical bay windows and a deep cornice created by a recessed roof terrace. It defines the new image of the Center and further reinforces the presence and identity of the complex.

The major spaces include design studios for all five years of the Professional Degree Program; classrooms; seminar and jury rooms; a 300 seat lecture hall and a 100 seat lecture room; specialized institutional laboratories, including computer, photography, and shops; a library; administrative and faculty offices; a University art gallery and an exhibition hall which, along with the lecture hall, will be available to other University programs.

The materials, details and construction technology of the building were selected to express the idea of an “architecture building as a continuous and flexible learning/teaching laboratory.”

Associate Architect: Ferebee, Walter & Associates

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The library provides a series of quality environments for serious study, informal browsing and music listening, as well as three instructional laboratories, a greenhouse to augment biological studies, an astronomical observatory tower, faculty offices, preparation rooms and a computer science center.

The building is organized along an elevated arcade that extends and is connected to those of the Main Building and overlooks the Field. The new facilities are reached through entrances off the arcade. Primary spaces—the science laboratories and the library reading room—are sited a half level below the arcade, at the grade of and overlooking a smaller landscaped area to the west. Ancillary spaces—stacks, study carrels, faculty offices, preparation rooms and computer center—are arranged beneath the arcade. These two levels are separated by a two-story skylit gallery, bridged by entrances from the arcade. The composition of building elements with a new façade that incorporates a renovated activity center is punctuated by the observatory housing the school’s 8” telescope.

The library’s main desk and reference area offer views over the main reading room, one level below, to the west, and out to a garden edged by a stone wall. This upper level of the library is illuminated by three circular skylights. At the north end of the two-story reading room is a one story periodicals area defined by a sinuous wall. The cabinets and curtain walls in the science labs are finished in mahogany, giving them the feel of an old college lab: glass, metal, dark wood.

Westover’s pedagogical philosophy is to allow its students access to the materials of education: lab spaces, the library, and the activities center are kept open for students to use. There are no locked doors.

Architecturally, the library and science building reiterates this notion of openness with views between spaces and no barriers between the building’s library and science wing. While capturing views of gardens and playing fields, the building also provides students and faculty relief from the cloister.

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The two main entrances, one on the upper ground/street level, the other on the lower ground/parking garage level, are interconnected by an open, skylighted stair gallery paralleling the auditorium.

The traditional gallery is adjacent to the lower entry and the double-height, flexible, experimental gallery is another level below grade, adjacent to the service tunnel, which relates to the existing access road.

The 20,000-square-foot building was rendered in granite, tile and metal panels, presenting itself as a discreet architectural object in the “garden” perceived in counterpoint to the surrounding existing large-scale structures.

In its rebuilding program were facilities not only for the debating society but also for activities more central to a broader spectrum of students, most importantly the office of the student president, a large meeting room, an information center, a lounge, and conference, seminar and work rooms. Some 10,000 square feet of the program were to be built into a structure that had previously held 7,000 square feet.

Further, new construction had to be built to current building—particularly fireproofing—codes and be fitted with a modern air conditioning system. The new facility is structurally and aesthetically independent from the shell of the original building within which it sits. To avoid overburdening old walls and foundations, new full height columns were lowered on to newly created foundations within the old building’s perimeter. By removing the east wall, the structure and the activity held within are visible to students along the busy cross campus path to the east.

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The academic and research areas, located on the middle five floors, include classrooms, lecture halls, computer labs, offices, and study areas. The top floors house administrative offices, a boardroom, and a conference center, organized around the central dining facility with views of the Empire State Building.

The academic heart of the campus is the 92,000-square foot research library, which occupies the entire second floor and portions of the ground and lower levels. It has its own internal vertical circulation system and a separate entrance from the main lobby.

Library facilities include open shelving for over 250,000 periodicals and monographs, 1,000 work stations of which more than half are wired to support either lap-top or desk-top computers, fully equipped state of the art Electronic Training Rooms, group study areas, miscellaneous special collection rooms, dissertation archives and music listening stations – all supporting the diverse and highly specialized academic departments.

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The transformation and expansion of the center, a 1935 neo-Georgian campus landmark, significantly expands and updates the students’ facilities. The center now provides student lounges, a food court and dining area, a movie theater, an expanded campus bookstore, a multi-purpose great hall, meeting rooms, a game room, a café, a restaurant and the central campus kitchen. The renovation preserves several of the landmark’s historic elements including the façade facing the central commons, the original shed roof and its distinctive cupola. Its expansion was accomplished by wrapping the building in a circular form, which mediates disparate context and topography, and by replacing a previous addition with a new, more efficient structure. The primary organizing element is a new, three-story skylit atrium, a dramatic space where students can see and be seen. The center’s circulation core is an open stairway rising in the middle of the atrium, which was created by cutting through the building’s floors and stripping the central area to its structural elements. Glazing replaces much of the original gabled roof, flooding the atrium with natural light and exposing the original cupola above. The upper floor houses a conference center with flexible meeting spaces arranged around the new atrium. Beneath the new skylight at the quadrangle level of the atrium, an open lounge provides a place for informal meetings and performances. Additionally, this level offers computer stations where students can work in an informal social setting. On the Main Street level, a student dining lounge adjoining a food court features a two-story glazed wall overlooking the stadium. The dining facility surrounds a 200-seat theater, which occupies the bottom of the atrium with direct access off the new Main Street pedestrian promenade. The lower level of the student center houses a game room and provides access to the newly created Stadium Plaza. The new south wing houses the relocated campus bookstore, a restaurant, the central campus kitchen, and a new multi-purpose great hall accommodating up to 1,000 people for various events. Download project pdf for more information