Architecture
Planning
Interiors
Graphic Design
Germplasm Laboratory
United States Department of Agriculture
Beltsville, MD
The Germplasm lab's mission is to "collect, document, preserve, evaluate, enhance and distribute plant genetic resources for improving the quality and production of economic crops important to U.S. and world agriculture". It is the central repository for the testing and examination of all seeds imported into the US.
USDA had developed a program and schematic for the site. Michael Jones led the effort, as Project Designer, reexamining the schematic design and redefining the planning and expression of the building to better fit its mission and context within the Beltsville Agricultural campus.
Fitting within NSA-imposed height restrictions, the building acknowledges its mission and context through its Quonset hut-like forms clad in lead-coated copper and the sky lighted, silo-like form of its burnt brick library.
With Ellerbe Becket
design: 19911
built: 1993
