University of Maryland, Baltimore Health Sciences Facility III

Designed to reflect the collaborative enterprise it fosters, the Health Sciences Facility III provides cutting-edge lab and multidisciplinary workspace for researchers exploring breakthrough treatments for cancer, diabetes and heart disease. The building strengthens UMB’s footprint in West Baltimore and serves as a new economic engine for the city.

HOK’s design creates an efficient lab block oriented east-west that steps down to welcome visitors with a one-level massing along the street. A similar theme extends along the building’s southern face, where its form acknowledges an outdoor plaza with a porous cluster of offices that invite views through the atrium into the building.

Inside the building a vast glass atrium connects a 12-story wet lab tower to a five-story dry lab tower via bridges. The atrium, flanked by labs and informal meeting spaces, further knits together the building with the neighboring schools of medicine, dentistry and pharmacy.

A network of connected outdoor green spaces and courtyards encourages collaborative meetings and impromptu interactions. Transparent materials blur boundaries between interior and exterior spaces, with the outdoor plazas functioning as extensions of interior spaces.

HOK designed the facility in association with Design Collective. Jacobs collaborated on the lab planning and programming.