(from left to right) Karen Hellman, Senior Director, Infrastructure Services, Argonne National Laboratory; Marc Jones, Director, Office of Field Safety, Security, and Infrastructure, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science; The Honorable Bill Foster, U.S. Representative for the 11th Congressional District of Illinois; Paul Kearns, Director, Argonne National Laboratory; Joanna Livengood, Manager, Argonne Site Office, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science; and Juan de Pablo, Vice President for National Laboratories, The University of Chicago
The Materials Design Laboratory (MDL) is the final of four buildings forming Argonne’s Energy Quad, an area dedicated to energy, chemistry, and materials collaborations. Heavy Elements Chemistry and Separation Science Groups will be moving to MDL before summer 2020.
On December 13, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the construction of a new building, the Materials Design Laboratory (MDL). In attendance were future building occupants, laboratory staff and contractors involved with designing and building the MDL, local community leaders and Laboratory leadership.
The ceremony started with tours of the facility, followed by remarks by several distinguished speakers: Paul Kearns, Laboratory Director; Juan de Pablo, CEO of UChicago Argonne, LLC, and Vice President of National Laboratories at the University of Chicago; Bill Foster, U.S. Representative for Illinois’s 11th congressional district; and Marc Jones, Director, DOE Office of Field Safety, Security, and Infrastructure.
The $95 million MDL is an important addition to the Laboratory that will enable pivotal discoveries for years to come. It is the final of four buildings forming the Laboratory’s Energy Quad, an area of the Lab that is dedicated to energy, chemistry, and materials collaborations.
Many hands contributed to the construction of this state-of-the-art building with roughly 124,000 square feet of laboratory, office, and collaboration space. In this space, the MDL devotes roughly 38,000 square feet for radiological and vibration-sensitive laboratories specifically tailored for materials for energy research.
The MDL received a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design “Gold” rating from the U.S. Green Buildings Council. It also complies with DOE’s Guiding Principles of High Performance Sustainable Buildings.
The DOE’s Science Laboratories Infrastructure (SLI) program in the Office of Science (SC) funded the building construction. The SLI program’s primary focus is on long-term modernization of SC laboratory facilities and infrastructure to ensure the mission readiness of SC laboratories with state-of-the-art facilities and infrastructure that are flexible, reliable, and sustainable in support of scientific discovery.
