Long before construction finished on the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, Rafael Viñoly Architects was retained for the next phase of the project— the Fisher Translational Research Center. This first expansion phase in an overall master plan for Penn Medicine that includes both the University of Pennsylvania Health System and the university’s School of Medicine, the Fisher Translational Research Center builds on the original Perelman Center while simultaneously preserving its urban character and laying the groundwork for seamless future development. As a translational facility, the new building unites research and clinical functions under one roof to allow the practices of scientific investigation and patient care to inform each other through close physical proximity.

The new research center consists of a 14-story extension to the west wing of the Perelman Center. Despite its increased height, the placement of the lab building along the perimeter of the Perelman Center respects the central atrium as an urban landmark and public gathering place. Future expansion of the facility will also line the outside of the building, along the south and east wings. The basement of the Fisher Translational Research Center houses the pre-existing Roberts Proton Therapy Center (on which Rafael Viñoly Architects performed limited design services), above which three floors expand the clinical spaces of the original Perelman Center. Separated from the clinical floors by an interstitial mechanical level, seven stories of laboratory research spaces constitute the facility’s new programming and include two vivarium levels.

Express service elevators bypass the clinical levels to allow for swift, private circulation of animals and researchers from the basement loading docks to the laboratories on the sixth and seventh floors. Louvered windows on the vivarium levels admit natural light while reducing disturbances to the research program. Three animal-imaging MRI stations are located on the ground floor above the proton therapy gantries in the basement to accommodate shared proton services. Above the vivarium levels, five floors of open, flexible research labs feature 36 lab modules per floor and can accommodate 105 researchers.