Grimshaw's Creative Concept and Approach to the Design

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Facility Design Approach

The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center is an independent, not-for-profit research center located in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. It is a facility devoted to basic plant science research with a goal of applying critically needed new knowledge in a manner that will benefit human nutrition and health and improve the sustainability of agriculture worldwide.

The Danforth Center is the product of a collaborative partnership which includes the Missouri Botanical Garden, Monsanto Company, Purdue University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Missouri-Columbia, and Washington University in St. Louis.

Clear goals were set forth in the Danforth Center’s original design brief. The primary objective was to establish a working environment that would allow scientists to explore and exchange ideas within a community dedicated to advancing the science and understanding of the world’s reliance on plants. Another priority was the creation of an open and accessible environment, providing a forum where the public could be introduced to the research work through lectures and presentations.

Conceptually, the approach was to treat the Center as a small community and arrange the varied operations of the building into layers to create a passive separation between the public and private functions. The laboratories and offices are arranged into two main wings running north to south separated by a central atrium.

Each laboratory block is linked together by a series of walkways, bridges and meeting platforms that provide a semi-private space for the scientists to meet informally and exchange ideas away from the labs and public spaces. The blocks are also linked at the south end by a freestanding pod structure that contains the semi-public areas of the library, meeting rooms and faculty lounge.

The central atrium is a fully accessible three-story high public space enclosed by a ridged north-light roof and two fully glazed end elevations, to create a light and airy internal garden. The space is arranged over the ground and basement levels to maintain the public access to the main space while special events are taking place in the conference rooms or auditorium below. The atrium is not fully air-conditioned and only tempers the environment in the peripheral areas. This provides a balance between the fully air-conditioned lab areas and the outside environment while reducing the operating costs of the building.

The building layers are further extended out into the environment along its south elevation by an external public space or "Front Street". This front street is flanked on one side by the south face of the building and the other by a narrow reflecting pond. The intention is to eventually enclose the space with a three-story high brise soleil with motorized glass louvres arranged in strips at the top and bottom. These louvres, powered by photovoltaic cells, will open to allow air movement through the space and function as a solar chimney.

In addition to the low-energy operating systems, care has been taken to use low embodied energy materials that use the minimum quantity of energy in their production. For this reason, timber has been used extensively throughout the building.

The design solution for the east-west facades of the building is a unique and innovative one. A terracotta rainscreen curtain wall with integral aluminium sunshading louvres is designed to temper the effects of the environment on the east and west faces of the building envelope. The combination of terracotta and machined aluminium framing effectively realizes the desire for an expressive cladding system, demonstrating the meeting of technology and nature in the building. This fusion of high technology and natural traditional materials will reinforce the essence of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center - harnessing and optimizing plants for the benefit of humankind.