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Mobil Exploration and Production Research Laboratory

Farmer's Branch, Texas
Completed 1983

Research and engineering building with administrative offices
 

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On a wooded site in a rapidly developing suburban area north of Dallas, the client requested a headquarters complex to provide offices and research laboratories for fuel exploration and related technologies.

The 337,000 s/f complex expresses the two functions with a four-story cylindrical administrative tower (housing offices, training facilities, dining and communal services) and a two-story laboratory spine. Physically and programmatically, the two components are separate but connected. Each is organized around a softly lit atrium designed to facilitate physical and visual communication while minimizing solar loads through diffused clerestory lighting.

Executive divisions wrap around a 90-foot-square indoor courtyard that serves as the headquarters' main lobby. Research facilities, by contrast, are organized along a 500-foot-long gallery crowned by a barrel vault that reflects natural light into the interior. Bridges link laboratories on one side of the gallery to their related office spaces on the other, and multiple open stairwells connect upper and lower levels. The strategy underlying this highly visible and accessible corridor is to spatially unite the building's occupants and thereby engender a sense of community. Animated by kinetic sculpture and by daily activities put on display, the gallery encourages communication and the spontaneous exchange of information.

Major Components

219,600 s/f Laboratory Wing with 9,000 s/f Galleria, 150 laboratories (51,000 s/f); 117,800 s/f Office Wing with 9,000 s/f lobby / atrium; 61,000 s/f offices; 8,000 s/f conference/training rooms; commissioned art (Susumu Shingu, Richard Smith sculptures; Ivan Chermayeff tapestry, David Shapiro painting); outdoor work yard for storage / testing of heavy equipment; 6-acres surface parking for 400 cars; 10-acres landscaping

I. M. Pei & Partners services

Master Planning; Complete Architectural Services; Interior Design

Structural

Weiskopf & Pickworth, New York, NY

Mechanical / Electrical

Cosentini Associates LLP, New York, NY

Associate Architect

Earl Walls Associates, La Jolla, CA

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