The Emergency/Response Plant Support Facility is a new typology and program that was the result of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission response to the tragic nuclear accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Facility near Cleveland Ohio. The 120,000 (11,000 SM) Facility is a teaching, laboratory and readiness center with a remote laundry facility for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Washington, functioning as a teaching, training and testing facility under normal operating conditions to function as a control, management and information dissemination headquarter in a nuclear emergency. The facility is sited to respect the topography of the rolling desert landscape in Eastern Washington State though the spanning of two hills with the upper floor  with the training, office, support and administrative areas  allowing the valley as an entrance to the laboratories and shielded control areas on the lower level, protecting loading areas and entrances from the high velocity gusting winds that are typical of this environment. The siting allows this rectangular configuration to be visible from a long distance with only the power plants and surrounding hills as a context to this facility. The entry court captures and defines space in the emptiness of this site which refocuses a view to the plants reminding the users the mission of responsibility that they have in protecting the environment and human life. The form expresses simplicity and integration of the complex systems required of this facility exhibiting an elegant austerity that serves to protect in this hostile desert environment.

(work completed prior with HDR)