The Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology transforms a former bus parking lot located at the eastern edge of the University of Pennsylvania’s campus into a welcoming gateway to the University and expresses its leadership in the field of nanotechnology. The Singh Center is the University’s first transdisciplinary building designed to house a range of high level laboratory functions. Though restrictive, the complex technical parameters of the laboratory program enhance the building’s architectural and urban potential. The most sensitive nanotechnology research requires complete isolation from surrounding elements such as vibration, electromagnetic interference, and ultraviolet light waves. In order to shape an environment suitable for these precise research conditions, the building is set back a considerable distance from the street and vibration zones of surrounding buildings (such as elevator cores). Externally, this setback welcomed a new 1.7 acre campus green—a microcosm of Penn’s famed quadrangle. The Center is designed to focus the laboratories around this new central green, introducing the sciences to the University. The building hosts state-of-the-art fabrication and characterization labs and a ten-thousand-square-foot cleanroom, as well as general labs, classrooms, meeting rooms, and a large public forum that cantilevers sixty-eight-feet over the new campus green. An ascending public galleria is situated between the lab and exterior enclosure and features a 158-foot amber-colored glass wall that filters ultraviolet light to protect the photosensitive nanofabrication equipment inside the labs, allowing the public to view the research from the galleria.

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