NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION:
Advanced technology and regionalism
A project aim was to create an image suitable to biotechnology, one of the key fields for advanced research toward the next millennium.
Site
The project is located in a hilly region. Facilities including surrounding fields are distributed across 4 to 5 hectares. The plan takes advantage of the naturally occurring 7m drop in elevation.
Distribution
The design is based on a motif that recalls a bird spreading its wings to take flight on a breeze that blows through a zone of verdant greenery. Harmony with the surrounding environment was a goal in distributing the facilities. The properties of the site and requirement for access by car led to the circular road on the periphery. The road unifies the functions as an urban symbol.
Plan
The basic plan arranges the office and laboratory wings along the long east-west axis and the information wing along the north-south axis. The width of the structure and consideration of the acoustic environment in the interior suggested the folded roof design. Corridors are placed to the south to minimize temperature variations in the laboratories. The roof of the information wing, which includes exhibition spaces, is curved to provide a contrast to the folded roofs of the laboratory wings.
Margins
The half-mirror glass cladding functions as a device for wrapping the structure in natural light. Like a prism on a hill, the structure creates interior spaces that are at one with the natural surroundings. For the researchers who occupy it, it offers margins of liberty for creative work. By extension, it is designed to be surprising and emotionally satisfying, a space that makes people happy and that serves as a springboard for hope directed toward the future. |
