The pioneering design for the Bridging the Rift (BTR) project on the border of Israel and Jordan -- a unique scientific collaboration between the two countries in partnership with Cornell and Stanford universities -- has won the 2006 MIPIM (Marché Internationale des Professionnels d'Immobilier)/Architectural Review Future Projects Award for Innovations.

The project architect, Mustafa Abadan, a design partner at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, New York, is a Cornell alumnus (B.Arch '82, M.Arch. '84).

Abadan's building will be part of a life sciences research complex on 150 acres, donated equally by both countries, 43 miles south of the Dead Sea. A master plan for a research complex was presented at the groundbreaking ceremony for the BTR project in March 2004, and this design is a subcomponent, or Phase 1, of that larger plan.

"It will be built, we just don't know quite when," said Abadan. "There are a couple of legal issues about jurisdiction to be worked out, but I think the funding is pretty much in place for this piece."

"The BTR Foundation together with the governments of Jordan and Israel has been working tirelessly to come up with a new set of laws that will enable the operation of its unprecedented Free Education Zone, which will maintain the right atmosphere for scientific collaboration through the Middle East," said Hilla Maron, director of development for the BTR Foundation. "Construction of the center will begin once the bilateral legal treaty is finalized."

Collaborative research programs are already under way as Cornell contributes to develop the world's first database of all species in the Dead Sea region, called the Library of the Desert, a centerpiece of the BTR mission. The center, which will include about 100 researchers from Israel, Jordan and the United States, will offer doctoral degrees from both Stanford and Cornell to students from both sides of the border.

Abadan faced some unique challenges in designing the building, which will consist of three research laboratories, a lecture hall, dining hall, library and a roof-level courtyard, in the desert straddling the two countries.

"The biggest challenge was the environmental issues of building in the desert," said Abadan. "But this became a source of inspiration rather than a hindrance."

Challenges have included regulating the building's temperature in a sustainable manner. While the sun makes desert days extremely hot, the air is also dry and holds little heat after sunset, causing temperatures to cool dramatically. Abadan incorporated into his building lessons learned from indigenous Egyptian wind towers and a Bedouin trick of making ice in the cold desert nights. The building, which will sit a few inches above the desert floor, will cover a pool of water that cools by night and is shaded by day. A solar chimney will use convection to draw that cool, moist air up into the building during the hot day. In winter, a damper will allow the chimney to be closed. Also, three sides of the building will be made of massive stone walls, creating a thermal mass to absorb the sun's heat.

The March 15 award was presented at the MIPIM conference in Cannes, France, by Architectural Review magazine. The judges noted that "the environmental strategy was more convincing" than any other they saw and that the building was "doing its job properly in every way."

"The project we submitted is actually a small part of the original vision," Abadan said. "We created a project for fund raising and to have a physical presence on the ground."

The scientific programs are already underway, and this project will begin to provide a home for them. The Library of the Desert project involves adaptable software and a searchable database that catalogs sizes and shapes of all life forms in the Middle East. The software will allow for sophisticated inquiries about species. Another program, the Microbiology Project, will take the most comprehensive inventory of microscopic life in the Dead Sea region from both sides of the Jordanian-Israeli border.