If you stand opposite the southern face of Chaparral Hall and admire the façade of Cal State Northridge’s ultramodern new science building, you cannot help but learn a little biology. It was planned that way.

“Look up at the building and observe the windows,” College of Science and Mathematics Dean Jerry Stinner urged biology alumni, community members and other celebrants at the mid-April grand opening. The window placement, he explained, represents a kind of scientific/architectural “in joke”: their meticulous arrangement represents a DNA fingerprinting pattern on an electrophoresis gel.

“Isn’t that cool?” Dean Stinner grinned. “This building screams science.”

Architectural grace notes like the DNA sequencing windows, along with many more serious innovations, came together impressively to earn the four-story, 100,000-square-foot building two American Institute of Architects Awards for design, in 2007 and 2010.

A great strength of the new building’s design, Stinner points out, comes from the fact that “Chaparral Hall was designed by scientists with scientists in mind.”

Biology Department chair Randy Cohen MS ‘80 (Biology) said much of the research and teaching space was designed by faculty and staff working directly with Cannon Design’s architectural team. “A faculty member would sit down with the architect and say, for example, ‘I like a low bench or a high bench, space for a refrigerator, an incubator, bio safety hoods,’ sketching out what they actually needed.”

Chaparral’s autoclave and centrifugation facilities, its histology section and radioactivity room were among the many features that evolved from the scientist/architect working relationship.

The passionate involvement of Stinner and Cohen, the architects, the faculty, and staff led by William Krohmer, the Biology Department’s technical services and safety manager, combined to produce a 161-room gem with 18 research labs, nine introductory teaching labs, 13 lecture rooms, a DNA sequencing lab, topflight computer labs, an abundance of eco-friendly features and a microscopy suite to house the university’s new confocal and electron microscopes.

For nearly a quarter of a century, Chaparral Hall was merely a gleam in the university’s eye, sidetracked by the 1994 earthquake and buffeted by California’s perennial budget crises. But the need for it only grew. The two original science buildings had been erected in the 1960s, said Stinner, followed by Science 3 and 4 in the ‘90s, just prior to the quake. “Since then, science has changed tremendously,” he said, “and so has CSUN.”

During Cohen’s graduate years in the late ‘70s, four science departments were crammed into two buildings, and research was not considered a top priority. “Now all of our labs are actively engaged in research,” he said.

So the time for a science building for the 21st century was past due, said President Jolene Koester. CSUN recognizes that its fundamental mission is teaching, she said, but “the role of research in this university is special, unique and absolutely necessary. [It] means that our graduate, and most importantly, undergraduate students get experience in doing research.”

Biology student Holly Hawk, currently engaged in research on the endangered giant sea bass, put her finger on Chaparral’s importance to her personally. “It is a representation,” she said, “of CSUN’s dedication to supply us as future students, teachers and scientists with the tools necessary to be successful.”

Hawk’s sentiments, say Stinner and Cohen, express best the intent of the new facility. Chaparral Hall’s advanced technological infrastructure bedazzles, but ultimately it has only one purpose: to serve the important work of CSUN’s students and scientists.

In this issue, Northridge Magazine presents three of the many outstanding research and mentoring efforts that regularly place Cal State Northridge among the top five U.S. institutions sending graduates on to pursue research doctorates in biology.

— Brenda Roberts

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