University of Texas at San Antonio, Biotechnology, Sciences and Engineering Building I

San Antonio, Texas

Firm

FKP

Client

University of Texas at San Antonio

Area

216,000 sq.ft.

Completion Date

08/2005

The Biotechnology Sciences and Engineering Building I is the first of two buildings that forms the gateway to the University of Texas at San Antonio main campus from the south.
This five-story atrium building is designed to foster interdisciplinary research and collaboration among its various science and engineering programs. It provides much-needed facilities that will support UTSA’s goal to achieve “tier 1” research campus status and assume a leadership role in the fields of bioengineering, biotechnology and chemistry. The building’s main entrance is designed as a gallery space, with glass-fronted cases for departmental displays. A bistro serves the atrium floor and adjacent outdoor dining patio, and departmental faculty offices are grouped together on the first floor to facilitate interaction. Other interaction spaces ring the central atrium.
The BSE building houses research and teaching laboratories for life sciences, and research labs for chemistry, civil and electrical engineering research, plus a 9,000-square-foot vivarium, and offices for graduate students, faculty, department heads and the deans of both science and engineering.
Exterior facades are modulated sensitively to keep the five-story building in scale and character with the existing three-story buildings on the campus.