University of Maryland Baltimore

As the University of Maryland School of Medicine planned the implementation of its new curriculum, it was clear that teaching and research spaces needed changing too. Ayers/Saint/Gross provided architectural and engineering services for renovation of the mezzanine and second floor of Howard Hall, the six-story teaching and research facility that connects many buildings on the dense urban health sciences campus.

Howard Hall began as a warehouse in 1928 and was updated in the 1960's to accommodate wet-bench teaching labs. The critical component in the new design is multi-use labs clustered in groups of four, with an additional three-lab group. Each lab accommodates 12 students, for a total of 178. Each cluster has a centralized instructor's room.

A “Medical Informatics” network of voice, data, video, and audio/visual/video allows instructors and students to immediately access multiple lab resources and broadcast live experiments from the master instruction room. Acoustics, lighting, and sightlines – all central to using this technology – required working within the original concrete frame, columns, and pipes.

Administrative space for the Department of Epidemiology also is on this level, with a computer teaching lab, conference rooms, and offices. The connecting corridor was designed as an interior street.

Payette Associates provided program and design consultation.

Completion: 1996
Size: 38,000 gsf
Cost: $6 million