Northwestern University
Lurie Medical Research Center
Chicago, Illinois

420,000 SF • 39,020 SQ M

Northwestern University commissioned Davis Brody Bond to design a new research building on the downtown Chicago campus of its renowned medical school, Feinberg School of Medicine. The new building contains three major research centers: the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Center for Genetic Medicine and the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanoscience in Advanced Medicine. Developed on the former site of the Passavant Hospital, a significant challenge of the project was the development of a design solution sensitive to the surrounding urban character of the medical school campus, yet an appropriate and innovative statement for the future of the school.

The facility includes twelve floors that accommodate state-of-the-art biomedical research laboratories, faculty offices and support spaces for the fields of genetics and molecular medicine, cancer, neuroscience and biomedical engineering. The ground floor includes classrooms, auditoriums, informal lounge space and a sky-lit campus center for unique functions. The Lurie Medical Research Center includes a 70,000 sf vivarium housed on two sub-floors, a clean and dirty corridors/system, housing/procedure suites, isolation/quarantine suites, survival operating room suites, injection suites, and all required staff and animal support areas.

The Lurie Medical Research Center greatly enhances the translational medical research conducted by interdisciplinary groups of investigators across the medical school. Clinicians and basic scientists work side-by-side in open laboratories that foster multidisciplinary teams focused on disease-specific programs in areas such as cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, bio-nanotechnology, infectious diseases, regenerative medicine, and genetics.

(Photography by Neil Alexander and Jon Miller at Hedrich Blessing)