The institute sets aside connections to earlier campus designs, except for the buff brick theme. Positioned at the western entrance to the campus, the three-story interdisciplinary laboratory/office complex extends in a linear configuration along an east–west axis to make the most of the northern light filtering in from the bay. Conference rooms with ocean views in a separate one-story wing with twisted walls, much like a hyperbolic paraboloid, are designed to entice visitors to partake of the institute's mission to advance the sustainable use and conservation of the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico.