The project is one of just five Nanoscale Science Research Centers established by the U.S. Department of Energy and the only one built on the west coast. The six-story, 94,500-square-foot laboratory will be devoted to multidisciplinary nanotechnology research, involving researchers from private industry as well as universities throughout the world. Berkeley Lab will operate The Foundry, which is being funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Rudolph and Sletten joined the project during its initial design phase and partnered with the project architects, SmithGroup, and Berkeley Lab to address the unusual construction requirements of the facility and originate a set of standards for building the nanotech structure. Only a handful of nanotech research facilities have been constructed across the country, most within the last five years, and standards for construction are still evolving.

The Foundry combines clean room construction, typically associated with the semiconductor industry, with laboratory construction that is typical in the construction of biotech research facilities. The project achieved LEED Gold NC.