August will make one year since the Life Sciences Building opened its doors to Loyola Marymount University students for the first time. Since then, the building has had an estimated 1,240 students learn and study in its spaces. The building has also attracted the attention of several awarding bodies, and has racked up an impressive three awards in the last few months for the building’s design and construction.
In June, the Los Angeles Business Council honored the Life Sciences Building with the education award at their 46th Annual Architectural Awards. The award recognizes excellence in design of educational facilities. The Life Sciences Building, along with other awardees, help to set new standards of design innovation and sustainability, as well as demonstrate the potential of combining beautiful architecture with environmental and health best practices, according to the council.
The building also won the 2016 Harman Innovation Award for Active Learning Space at the UBTech conference in Las Vegas. The award celebrates the way the building uses AV and IT technology to promote hands-on learning among students.
One of the goals of the project, according to Matt Frank, manager of classroom and creative services at LMU, was to “create an entire building of active learning spaces, removing the separation of lab time and class time.”
“We took all of the technology that you would normally find in the teaching space and embedded that into the laboratory space,” Frank explained.
The Society for College and University Planning and the American Institute of Architects Committee on Architecture for Education awarded the Life Sciences Building the New Building Merit Award for its innovative organization and state-of-the-art features.
These awards are in addition to the US Green Building Council awarding the building LEED Gold certification in fall 2015, a significant achievement for a science building, which requires a significant amount of energy to operate.