Built to Endure: The Harte Research Institute Building’s Timeless Design Still Inspires 25 Years Later

David Richter said one of the goals for an architect when designing a building is not becoming caught up in the current design trends but creating a structure that has staying power. Designing a building that withstands the elements of the environment and is a relevant key landmark that is inspiring for future generations.

Richter lives less than a half mile from the building his company — Richter Architects — helped design more than 25 years ago on the campus of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Nearly every day he has the chance to gaze at the Harte Research Institute’s home and reflect on those core tenets of design.

As the decades have passed since those first sketches were drawn, HRI’s 56,000-square foot building stands not only as a physical space for groundbreaking marine research but also as a symbol of enduring design principles. In short, it has that staying power.

“I think it really does,” Richter offered. “It’s one of the older buildings on campus, and I don’t think it looks like it. We’ve been very conscious over the years not to get too caught up in the fashion of the day. We look for something more substantive to get inspired by and metaphorically express the client’s mission to make it a better place for people.

“These are things that don’t come into style or out of style, you build a design on permanent virtues … they are likely to last.”

The building Richter designed stands as a testament to the company’s mantra and is the first building travelers see on Ocean Drive when entering the TAMU-CC campus from the north, making it a “gateway building.”

The building officially opened in 2005, around five years after Ed Harte’s generous $46 million gift to the university in 2000. The journey from a design on paper to brick and mortar began with a $15 million appropriation in 2001 by the Texas Legislature, and from that point HRI’s permanent home began to take shape.

Every aspect matters

Richter’s group had a slight advantage in that he lived less than half a mile from campus and the spot where the building would take shape next to Oso Bay and near Ocean Drive.

To create the best building possible, Richter says every aspect matters — from how people use and react to it, to how it adapts over time with evolving technologies and changing functions, while also responding to its environment through thoughtful design considerations such as solar orientation, storm resistance, and long-term adaptability to avoid premature obsolescence.

Designers oriented the building with intention. The longer sides, with larger windows, face north and south “optimized solar orientation”. The east and west sides are opaque because as Richter explained “that’s where your most adverse solar exposure” is located.

“That’s why we put the all the labs along the south side, and all the offices and people spaces along the north side,” Richter stated. “The south side with the labs doesn’t need as much daylight and needs more solid wall for cabinets to be against and so forth.”

The design prioritized separating offices and workspaces from labs, allowing for greater flexibility and improved functionality. This allowed researchers to move fluidly between labs and shared, open workspaces, fostering collaboration .. The design reflected a balance between technical requirements and the human experience within the building as the north side offered a nearly unobstructed view of Corpus Christi Bay.

Richter added the building design officially predated Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) sustainability performance metrics, but many of the aspects of the design incorporated what are commonly in use today such as energy use, water efficiency, material selection and sustainable site development.

Creating an integrated design

Once inside the building, designers wanted to give guests a metaphorical connection to the sea. In a 2005 article in Texas Shores, the entrance was described by Elizabeth Richter, one of the design firm’s partners and David Richter’s wife, as being like “a fish that swims through the building and then bursts out on the other end into the conference center”.

Other features included wooden paneling to give the effect of guests having the feeling of walking under a school of fish, and twisted brick walls on the outside of the entrance and into the conference center. In addition, the inside stairwell and its blue tile were designed to give the feeling of being inside a clam shell.

“We felt that by creating those walls that are on the outside brick and inside blue tile, it sort of has several imageries going on at the same time,” David Richter explained. “In one sense kind of like a seashell because the other side is sort of calcified, and beige stone material. Inside is almost like mother of pearl, glazed blue wet and dry. That is a metaphor and imagery of both marine life and the marine environment edge between land and sea.”

The idea was to create public spaces that helped showcase not only HRI’s marine research work but also the civic and policy dimension of the institute.

“One side (of the building) is more hard science, and the other is more outreach,” Richter said. “In reality it’s an integrated design as the building aspires to be artful in all of its places and dimensions, and human and efficient.”

Building a legacy

The building’s layout fosters collaboration and flexibility, its orientation and materials work well for the South Texas climate, and its structure was designed with the ideas of scientific inquiry and public engagement in mind.

From the metaphorical fish entrance to the shimmering blue tile and twisted brick walls, the building’s detail reflects the institute’s connection to the sea and the delicate balance between nature and humanity.

As David Richter still sees it daily from his nearby home, the building remains as relevant as ever.

“It’s part of the face of the institute, it’s part of the bones of the institute,” Richter said. “The physical framework, all the knowledge and creativity is put into play. It’s not incidental. It’s not trivial and it certainly was not casually conceived. We still like it a lot.”