Vinoly to Design $500M Hughes Research Campus

ASHBURN, VA-Chevy Chase, MD’s The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has made headway on its 10-year, $500 million biomedical science center project with the recent selection of New York City-based Rafael Vinoly Architects PC. Construction is expected to begin in 2003 and the project’s estimated completion date is 2005.

The facility’s purpose will be cross-disciplinary research. “This unique campus will develop and share the advanced technology resources needed for the cutting-edge, interdisciplinary scientific work that will characterize the medical research of the future,” HHMI president Thomas R. Cech said upon announcing plans for the massive project a year ago.

Temporarily called Janelia Farm research campus, after the property on which it will sit, the project will ultimately consist of 750,000-sf of research labs, conference center space, and housing spread out over a 281-acre parcel of land in Loudoun County. The housing will accommodate visiting researchers, as the state-of-the-art facility will be open to chemists, physicists, computer scientists and biologists from all over the globe. HHMI acquired the sprawling property in late 2000 for $53.7 million.