The Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center, the nation’s largest crime lab that works to integrate higher education, city and county has earned LEED Silver Certification from the USGBC. The facility is a $102 million, 209,000-sq.-ft. laboratory that houses and combines the laboratory expertise of the Los Angeles police and sheriff's departments, California State University's School of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics, as well as the California Forensic Science Institute.  

Harley Ellis Devereaux provided project management, architectural, interior design and mechanical and electrical engineering support; partner companies Crime Lab Design provided laboratory consulting and planning services and GreenWorks Studio provided LEED/sustainable design consulting and building commissioning services.

The Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center's design works to integrate higher education, city and county. The concept of a teaching crime lab is a new one, according to Lou Hartman, PE, principal at Harley Ellis Devereaux. Designed to integrate students, city and county forensic scientists, the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center ensures that each group can efficiently and securely co-exist in the same facility. Criminal justice students at California State University Los Angeles learn in smart classrooms equipped with distance learning capabilities, chemistry and forensic science laboratories.
 
"Rather than designing the facility by group, we designed around function. Functions are placed  near each other so the groups can learn from one another, the entire floorplate is adaptable to laboratory use in anticipation of the future needs of each department within each agency,” says Hartman. Hartman noted that forensic laboratories must meet rigorous expecta-
tions due to the high visibility of the work. "The technical work performed in these labs must be able to withstand any evidentiary challenge. From a design standpoint, this means that the labs just be highly flexible to accommodate new advances in technology and equipment," he says.

The Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center opened in 2007 and earned certification earlier this spring.