This new facility is the final piece in the completion of a master plan concept, which uses both architectural and landscape elements to integrate the east and west campuses, currently bisected by a main city boulevard that eventually will be removed. The goal of the campus design is to maximize the design potential of the remaining site on the campus, use indigenous building materials, and provide maximum flexibility in the new laboratories.

The Center is designed to encourage interdisciplinary research, featuring flexible teaching space to accommodate future technologies. Program elements include research and teaching facilities for the USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range; a remote sensing/geographic-engineering laboratory; an electron microscope facility; and an isolation greenhouse designed as a clean room environment; and staff offices and multi-purpose seminar rooms. The plan is developed from the project goal of maintaining flexibility in the laboratories.

The laboratories are in one leg of the L, while the offices (faculty and graduate student offices) are in the other side on the L-shape. The octagon in the middle houses classrooms, seminar rooms, public areas and some offices. Separating the offices from the labs provides flexibility and affordability. The lab wing is a concrete structure that efficiently controls vibration, while the office wing is a typical steel office building structure (since vibration is not a concern in this wing).

The offices are accessible to the community since much of the research being conducted relies on interaction with local farmers. Organized with a racetrack corridor system the faculty offices at the exterior wall and graduate student offices in the middle. To humanize the middle area, a design of clerestory interior glazing was developed. The laboratory wing is a 10'-6" module and a support zone off a central double loaded corridor.

The building is organized with the teaching labs on the ground floor and two levels of research labs. To support flexibility the teaching lab furniture is movable. To create harmony with the context of this highly specialized research building, the materials originally used on the campus--stucco facade, red tile roofs and yellow stone walls--were applied in this new structure.