The 189,000 GSF Health, Science, and Technology (HST) building, designed with sustainability principles, occupies a prominent position at the northeast corner of Lehigh University's historic Asa Packer campus. The goal of the HST is to expand research in science, engineering, and add a new College of Health. The building accommodates 60 faculty when fully fitted out.  Achieving a  LEED v4 Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, the facility serves as a high-performance laboratory with a capacity of 130 fume hoods and focuses on optimizing energy and water efficiency.

HST provides a contemporary setting for research initiatives encompassing public health, chemistry, materials science, and biological science, and houses the administrative offices of Lehigh's recently established College of Health. Each floor of the five-story structure incorporates two open adaptable areas that can be readily reconfigured to meet evolving research requirements:  an open workplace environment and a parallel open laboratory environment facilitated by movable tables equipped with overhead gas lines, and the workplace and laboratories accommodate diverse spatial arrangements.

The building's open workplace environment integrates clusters of faculty offices, subtly delineating individual work areas within shared areas. Strategic placement of floor openings with connecting staircases and interior gardens further distinguishes each level, establishing a unique and integrated multi-level space. This dynamic organization fosters visual and physical connectivity among building occupants across large open floor plates and between neighboring floors, thereby encouraging meaningful collaboration among undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty researchers.  Open, adaptable laboratories also allow for the seamless expansion and contraction of research teams with minimal operational disruption.

The open laboratory zones encompass wet neighborhoods for Energy & Batteries, Functional Materials & Devices, BioHealth Initiative, and the College of Health. These zones are directly adjacent to and integrated with the computational research labs situated within the building's workplace space. HST has a deep basement for high performance imaging and the human interface visualization lab.

The program and siting intentionally encourage multi-disciplinary interaction. The HST bridges to the complex of three existing science and engineering labs to create an expanded precinct. “There’s no reason to have barriers and walls and that’s the way the building was designed. It eliminates them”, Steve McIntosh, Chair Bio-Molecular and Chemical Engineering. 

For this HST Project, William F. Wilson,  FAIA was principal in charge at Wilson Architects. He was the PIC from the start of the project to 50% CA. Throughout the phases of this project, from pre-design, budgeting and programming to schematic design, design development, until 50% Construction Documents, he led the team. HGA finalized the CDs and CA for this project. See articles about this project, the HGA site as well as more information on the following links: