LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY | TAUBMAN COMPLEX
SOUTHFIELD, MI

The LTU Taubman Complex serves as the connecting link between the Life Sciences and Engineering programs, and is home to the Marburger STEM Center. It involves a dynamic assembly of research spaces in a community setting, with flexible spaces to encourage interdisciplinary connections, facilitate social exchange and accommodate different departments as they grow.

The entry forms a new gateway to the campus quad with an open breezeway. It is considered a minimalist design with an “orb”-shaped grand staircase that rises from the entrance portal as the anchor. The staircase, with its unique shape, is sheathed in a state-of-the-art material- a reformulation of carbon fiber. Since carbon fiber is in its infancy as an architectural building material, the carbon fiber sheathing pioneers the combination of structural and non-structural carbon fiber specifications.

The “orb” was designed to cantilever over a large reflecting pool and encloses a stairway with an ocular shaped skylight that lets light stream through to the pool below. There are conference rooms, faculty offices and laboratories that delineate an extended double-height flex area which runs the length of the building. The two story space is a flexible learning and research center for LTU’s nationally recognized programs.

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AWARDS

2018 CAM Magazine Best Project of the Year