Honolulu, Oahu

The Life Sciences Building at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is a three-story, roughly 70,000–76,000 square foot, LEED Silver facility on East-West Road that opened for instruction in Fall 2020 as the new home for the School of Life Sciences and the Pacific Biosciences Research Center. In 2023 it was formally renamed the Isabella Aiona Abbott Life Sciences Building to honor the pioneering Native Hawaiian phycologist known as the “First Lady of Limu.”​

Inside, the building consolidates teaching and research spaces that were previously scattered across older facilities, with six state-of-the-art teaching labs and about fifteen research labs, along with computational labs, offices, prep rooms, and a central atrium designed for informal collaboration among students, faculty, and researchers. It serves biology, botany, microbiology, and related programs, supporting over a thousand students and dozens of faculty and graduate researchers each week in flexible lab spaces that can be reconfigured as life sciences technologies and research needs evolve.​​

From a technical and sustainability standpoint, the project replaced Henke Hall on a remediated brownfield site and uses structural steel framing with SidePlate moment frames for an open, easily adaptable floor plan, wrapped in high-performance curtain wall and aluminum composite panels to maximize daylight and views while controlling heat gain. The building’s LEED Silver design incorporates bioretention basins for stormwater treatment, low-flow plumbing fixtures, high-efficiency HVAC (including a water-cooled centrifugal chiller and high-efficiency gas water heating), enhanced insulation, and occupancy-based lighting and temperature controls to reduce energy and water use over its life cycle