The Ohio State University’s Pelotonia Research Center is the University's inaugural building for the Carmenton District, a forward-thinking mixed-use community dedicated to innovation

Columbus, Ohio

Education

The Pelotonia Research Center at The Ohio State University, previously known as the Interdisciplinary Research Facility, is the inaugural building in the University’s new Carmenton innovation district. The 305,000-square-foot building provides modular laboratories to support high-growth bioscience research and learning while uniting multiple disciplines to advance scientific discovery. Flexibly planned to enable lab reuse and adaptability, the Pelotonia Research Center can evolve as research needs change over time.

The building fronts a large public plaza connected to the 43-acre Fred Beekman Park and adjacent to the Energy Advancement and Innovation Center and Fred Beekman Walking Path.

Each research floor includes three, 10-PI wet bench neighborhoods and a separate computation research wing for 10 computational PIs.

Accelerating scientific discovery and transformative healthcare outcomes

The new Pelotonia Research Center includes a vivarium, shared vibration-free core labs, and 5 floors of research. Each research floor includes three, 10-PI wet bench neighborhoods and a separate computation research wing for 10 computational PIs. Graduate student write up for the wet bench neighborhoods are located in an open office area to the north of the labs separated by glass partitions. Two floors are dedicated to the Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology, a comprehensive bench-to-clinical-trial research initiative that will expedite advanced cellular therapies that harness the immune system to fight cancer.

Each floor has a large collaboration/open meeting area within the computational wing adjacent to the elevator core.

Inspiring community and engagement

Designed to emphasize a sense of community and excitement about the research within, a passersby can glimpse into the transparent ground floor laboratories, putting experiential learning and science on display. The building features a variety of gathering and teamwork spaces to enhance scientific discovery and interdisciplinary collaboration. Larger, open spaces will fuel informal, spontaneous meetings; quiet study rooms will support focused work and ideation spaces with whiteboards will enhance group creative thinking.

Environmental stewardship and carbon reduction

Featuring innovative technologies to meet the University’s own sustainability and energy conservation benchmarks, the building lowers its embodied carbon impact through reducing the amount of concrete used while still supporting vibration sensitive equipment. The building utilizes chilled beams to reduce the project EUI; estimated to be 205kBTu/ft2-year, yielding a projected 13.5% energy savings from the ASHRAE baseline model.