Components of the Facility
Green Features
About the Architect
Larry Kirkland: A Creative Vision for STEPS

The cornerstone of the STEPS initiative is a new 135,000-square-foot building situated at the corner of Packer Avenue and Vine Street on Lehigh's Asa Packer campus. The new building will be designed to facilitate collaborative learning and eliminate boundaries between the classroom and the lab and will feature state-of-the-art teaching and research areas mingled with seminar rooms, study lounges and faculty offices. The $62.1 million facility will be a "green" building with the goal of LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the gold standard for sustainable architecture in the U.S. Learn more about the green features of the STEPS building >

Building for a better tomorrow
Imagine a building laboratory of the 1960s and 1970s—a Bunsen burner, tabletop and sink, and various manual tools to collect and refine data. Yet today's Lehigh students are asked to do so much more because so much more is possible. In today's science buildings, students work in teams—testing theories with tools relevant for the 21st century; entering measurements into spreadsheets while calculating complex information on the latest computational software. In such settings, advances happen in real-time, at the intersections of disciplines, as people with diverse perspectives and expertise interact to frame issues and identify solutions.

The university's science resources are currently distributed among a number of departments and buildings across campus. While peer universities can offer students modern new buildings, undergraduate science and environmental research at Lehigh takes place in outdated facilities.

The most recent facility constructed for the undergraduate life and natural sciences was built in 1975. In addition to investments in its science faculty and programs, Lehigh has continued to upgrade many of its laboratories and has renovated a number of buildings on the Mountaintop Campus. While these improvements have served the university well, they no longer take the place of a building specifically designed for the interdisciplinary ways Lehigh approaches research and teaching related to the challenges facing our planet.

The planning facility strategically aligns faculty in several of Lehigh's science and engineering disciplines along with political scientists and economists focusing on environmental and energy policy. It sparks collaborative learning in classrooms, laboratories and offices interspersed throughout the L-shaped building—rather than isolated in separate wings or floors.

Components of the Facility

Fostering Interdisciplinary Collaboration
The new building will be designed to facilitate collaborative learning and eliminate boundaries between the classroom and the lab and will feature state-of-the-art teaching and research areas mingled with seminar rooms, study lounges and faculty offices. Suites provide collaborative, customized, student-centered learning environments. Flexibly designed classrooms and instructional laboratories will enhance teacher-student interactions and facilitate peer-to-peer instruction. The flexible layout accommodates both current and future trends in the use of instrumentation and educational technology.

Integrating Education and Research
The building's design will blur the boundaries between teaching and research to achieve real integration. Classrooms, teaching laboratories, research labs and offices are interspersed throughout the building rather than segregated into separate wings or floors. This floor plan promotes collaboration among undergraduate students and researchers from a wide variety of disciplines.

Combining Academic and Student Life
A grand atrium incorporated into the facility's entrance brings the external environment into the interior, linking multiple floors into a common space and serving as the living room of the building. By incorporating ample spaces for seating to encourage people to linger and occupy this space, design elements encourage a sense of community, offer an inviting environment and create a "destination." Students will want to visit and, once there, stay.

The facility incorporates sustainable design elements into construction, an approach that brings demonstrated savings in operating and maintenance costs. Bringing a number of Lehigh's scattered laboratories under one roof, while also offering opportunities to share resources and equipment, will create economies of scale. The facility also offers students the latest technology, integrated into the classroom and allows real-time interactive sessions to be part of every class. Outside the lecture hall, wireless technology enables every space to become a place for learning.

About the Architect

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ), founded in 1965, has offices in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Seattle and San Francisco. The firm's work is known for exceptional design, for its commitment to the particularity of place and user, and for an extraordinary aesthetic based on a quiet rigor which is both intellectual and intuitive.

University buildings comprise the core of BCJ's practice. We have completed over 165 projects at more than 50 institutions. We are currently designing major projects on campuses from New England to California; dealing with the layers of information and complex requirements that make campus commissions both uniquely challenging and deeply satisfying design assignments. Our work for academic clients has included nearly every major building type and we have a broad expertise in science and laboratory buildings.

We have received more than 375 regional, national and international awards for our design work. We have been leaders in the field of sustainable design since the firm's inception and have earned three prestigious AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) awards.

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson at Lehigh University
BCJ has a long and valued relationship with Lehigh University, completing several projects on campus that range in scale and circumstance. The most recent project completed was the Alumni Hall Parking Structure and Entrance Court, which provides a handsome backdrop to the venerable Alumni Memorial Building and a welcoming experience for first time visitors to Lehigh. Other projects include the Campus Square Housing Complex at the northern edge of campus and the Sayre Village Dormitory and Commons built into the hill overlooking the University below. BCJ is proud to add the Science Technology Environment Policy and Society (STEPS) building to our portfolio of university science projects.

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and the Design of the STEPS Building
In developing the project, the challenge was to comfortably integrate a large state-of-the-art laboratory facility into a prominent corner site at the juncture of Lehigh's campus and the neighborhood of South Bethlehem. The new building is located along a major pedestrian thoroughfare, creates spaces for gathering and interaction, and strengthens connections to the existing Maginnes Hall.