DBIA awarded the University of California, Riverside Multidisciplinary Research Building project the National Award of Merit in the Industrial, Process and Research Facilities category. Defining the gateway to a cross-disciplinary research hub for life/chemical sciences, medicine, and engineering, this five-story building is home to four floors of open, collaborative laboratories over a vivarium. The facility holds 40,000 NSF of wet/dry/flex laboratory space for 40 wet/damp research grounds and ten dry/computational research groups, as well as space for a 60-person seminar room. To fulfill the vision of this building as a multidisciplinary, collaborative space, the design of the building centers around gathering and interactive areas, with a communicating stair in the four-story, open atrium connecting the labs and offering a variety of collaboration zones alongside it. This collaborative atmosphere also permeates the building including an open-air gathering space on the Southern edge, termed “The Arroyo,” which features a café, arcades, and shaded seating as a response to the Inland Southern California climate while offering casual respite areas. Utilizing sustainable design strategies, the design team exceeded expectations by creating a LEED Platinum research facility—one of few laboratories buildings to achieve this accolade and the first to do so on UCR’s campus.