WORKPLACE

EDUCATION

WORKPLACE

NASA Glenn
Research Support Building

NASA Glenn
Research Support
Building

NASA Glenn
Research Support Building

Inspired by space exploration and satellites, the floating linear building is a sustainable, collaborative hub at the heart of the NASA Glenn Research Center, a facility that designs and develops innovative technology to advance NASA’s missions in aeronautics and space exploration.
—Always By Design

Inspired by space exploration and satellites, the floating linear building is a sustainable, collaborative hub at the heart of the NASA Glenn Research Center, a facility that designs and develops innovative technology to advance NASA’s missions
in aeronautics and space exploration.
—Always By Design

The Research Support Building for NASA's Glenn Research Center is organized around a series of linear elements shaped by campus context and programmatic need. Running parallel to the street, open-office and training spaces are arrayed between a service bar of private offices and meeting rooms on one side, and a resource wall of support functions on the other, creating a clear, legible logic to the plan.

Bisecting this linear sequence, a cantilevered platform rises to contain the building's communal heart: a dining area and shared gathering spaces that open toward the campus's main artery. The elevated structure extends outward to form a generous covered plaza, marking the building's main entrance and drawing visitors in from the surrounding grounds. The landscape design extends the communal spaces outward, with the newly established ‘Wright Commons’ anchoring the historic campus core and creating a destination that draws people from across the site.

The communal elevated bar also serves as a spatial threshold, delineating the open office zone from the dedicated campus resource spaces within the longer volume.

In massing, the building is calibrated to honor the scale of Glenn's existing research facilities. Material choices - metal panels, corrugated metal, and glass - deliberately echo the campus's industrial vocabulary while paying tribute to NASA's enduring culture of functionalism.

The multi-department facility brings together 200 fluid workspaces, a dining facility, exchange store, credit union, training and meeting rooms, and a gallery - resources that serve both the research center and NASA at large. As the nature of collaborative work continues to evolve, the building functions as a synergistic hub: a central place for the NASA community to connect, share, and support one another.