Built in 1959, the Bronk Building contains research laboratories and is located at the south end of Rockefeller University’s famous Plane tree-lined terrace. Mitchell Giurgola was retained to renovate the 4th floor for the Ford Center for Life Science Innovation, an incubator that will provide space to 15-20 start-up companies, and the 5th and 6th floors for the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute (Tri-I TDI), made up of researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine and Rockefeller University working to advance biological discoveries to preclinical studies.

The Tri-I TDI space contains specialty labs for Antibody Development, Chemistry, Small Molecule Biology, and Engineering and Bioanalysis, as well as office suites and lab support rooms. The Ford Center contains a combination of small “private” and open wet labs, as well as dry labs, tissue culture and equipment rooms. The renovated spaces for both Tri-I TDI and the Ford Center utilize flexible movable laboratory bench systems. Interior glass partitions, wood elements, pattern, graphics and color are used extensively in the design to create a light, open, welcoming environment intended to foster interaction and collaboration.