Bronx High School of Science has been awarded AN’s Best of Design 2023, Editor’s Pick

Bronx High School of Science, Stanley Manne Research Institute has been awarded an Editor’s Pick in the Education – Kindergarten, Primary & High School category for The Architect’s Newspapers Best of Design 2023!

Located at the Bronx High School of Science, one of New York City’s top public schools, the Stanley Manne Research Institute is a new state-of-the-art research building, gifted to the campus by Bronx Science ’58 alum Stanley Manne. This university-level facility allows high school students from across the Bronx to conduct long-term experiments and prepare for college or professional settings.

The building houses three multidisciplinary labs, a walk-in cold room, tissue culture room, microscopy room, sterilization room, animal room, and a multi-purpose room for special events. Like a professional lab, spaces are modular and flexible, as equipment and science requirements change over time.

The façade is composed of tightly spaced, fiber-reinforced concrete panels, punctuated by modular openings that relate to the compact and rational laboratory plans. The three-dimensional panels cast changing and dynamic shadows on the façade over the course of the day. Bright green brick accents representing the school color mark the entrances and carry inside to the main stair and lobby. These design elements serve both an aesthetic and performance function, as the tight building envelope and careful design of the exterior allowed for reduction in heating and cooling loads, which made the all-electric systems feasible for the project.  Based on the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories benchmarking, the project’s Energy Use Intensity is expected to be 70% of typical laboratory buildings.