Resnick Sustainability Center

No building could be more timely in its arrival than the Resnick Sustainability Center, as a hub of scientific research and as a showcase to educate the public. If humankind is to avert the impending catastrophe of climate change, scientists have to combat the malign influence of corporate misinformation, public ignorance, and unprincipled politicians.

Over the past century, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena has grown into one of the world’s leading research institutions, and the Resnick Sustainability Center brings engineers and scientists together on a prominent site that serves as a gateway to the campus. As Mehrdad Yazdani explains, “We wanted to design a building that drew attention to the great work being done at Caltech. It needed to be transparent and welcoming to users and visitors”. Like many of his firm’s other projects, it achieves those goals and much more with a form that grows organically from the ground and draws you in.

Yazdani Studio of CannonDesign was one of five American firms that competed for the project, which is named for a huge donation from the foundation of Lynda and Stewart Resnick, a rich farming family that supports the arts and education. The architectural language of the campus has evolved from the Spanish revival style of the 1920s, and the Resnick joins Morphosis’ Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics as a 21^st-century building that clearly expresses its contemporary relevance, while respecting the scale and materiality of its neighbors. The architects explored different concepts with the faculty and building committee, but the final scheme was very similar to their competition-winning design.

An undulating glass façade wraps two sides of the four-story block. To reduce costs, flat planes of double glazing were bent and attached to a steel frame, and the geometry was adjusted to stay within the tolerances of the glass....

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