CING LABORATORY BUILDING 2018

The new building resolves issues of integration, access and economy in a single gesture. The scheme instead of delineating a low, diffused building complex, promotes a compact, cubic, vertical and translucent landmark for research located today at an imposed boarder, tomorrow at a crossroads of a unified condition.
In addition to the operational requirements of the programme, the scheme promotes aspects of interdisciplinary research through the creation of a multi-functional environment for the production and dissemination of knowledge. Thus research is not solely produced within the confinements of a laboratory but through the spontaneous and informal encounter and open exchange of views and ideas.

The building is organized in three layers: a public ground floor; six upper levels for laboratory research and two underground levels for research, technical support and storage with controlled access. The roof garden serves the needs for exchange and recreation in a communal outdoor space with a unique panorama.

The square plan is typical and consists of a glazed enclosure, a perimeter external corridor and an outer shading envelope. The enclosure is defined by four bands: labs / nucleus / atrium / labs. The first and fourth bands, defined by structural elements are flexible spaces suitable for laboratories and communal programmes ensuring maximum flexibility in response to future requirements. The core acts as an in-between space incorporating vertical circulation and horizontal communication, laboratories’ support spaces and installations as well as wet spaces. The atrium constitutes a passage and destination, a space of communication and interaction, a place of repose, encounter and viewing in which suspended seatings, bridges and niches trigger different means of appropriation.

The desired transparency and translucency are achieved through a specialized skin system. Vertical, fixed or rotating perforated white aluminium blinds ensure a continuous, ‘urban’ animation of the façade, self-shading and the required indoor comfort.

The cubic volume of the building releases space on the ground and directs the open spaces’ strategy. Four distinct surfaces are defined: the Mediterranean meadow with the clearing, the bridge and the moat, the deck and the orchard. On the southern side, curves reproduce natural forms in contradiction to the building’s orthogonal massing. Between the moat and the perimeter road, the Mediterranean meadow embraces the curvilinear open-air municipal amphitheatre as a natural condition.