MESOM’s principal focus is to develop more efficient and accurate instrumentation to measure physical and biochemical changes to provide the scientific foundations for California’s coastal marine ecosystem forecasting. Work at MESOM will enable the research to become a model for understanding marine processes not only in California, but all of the world’s oceans, producing useful information for resource managers, decision makers and the public to guide them through today’s environmental challenges.
At the inception of the project, UCSD solicited the help of THA Architecture to design a facility that would enhance opportunities for collaborative research among the various disciplines at Scripps. These disciplines, having been previously dispersed among the UCSD campus, are now able to come together in the new 3-story, 40,000sf research center, which is composed of wet and dry laboratories, laboratory support rooms, open workspace, private offices, conference rooms and informal meeting areas.
The research center not only serves the public as a center of natural conservation and discovery, but the building itself provides clean energy to its surrounding community. Installed on the MESOM rooftop is a 61-kilowatt solar panel system and a 6kW/10kWh battery energy storage system. The renewable energy produced at this facility goes directly to the local electrical grid, providing solar energy to its neighboring community. The energy produced by MESOM’s solar panels is enough to power 40 homes and prevents 128,000 pounds of CO2 from entering the Earth’s atmosphere each year.