Project profile: Philadelphia Forensic Science Center

The new Forensic Science Center for the Philadelphia Police Department is both a state-of-the-art forensics laboratory facility and a demonstration project for green design.

The rigorous program includes a firearms unit; a crime-scene unit for gathering evidence; chemistry laboratories for drug analysis; and criminalistics and DNA laboratories for hair, fiber, and blood analysis. The Forensics Science Center handles all crime-scene evidence for the City of Philadelphia, with the exception of evidence from homicides. The Center is housed in a former K-12 school building on a site that had been abandoned for many years. It is a concrete-frame building with brick infill, originally constructed in 1929.
(2006 AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects recipient)