Research Centre Design | Humanities Research Building in Trinity College Dublin | Long Room Hub | McCullough Mulvin Architects

The proposed new Humanities Research Building in Trinity College Dublin – the ‘Long Room Hub’ – will be a platform for the Irish university sector focus on achieving world-class status. It is a space for thinking, for making soaring linkages, for sharing the unique collections of the Long Room. The site for the project is in Fellows Square at the heart of the College; the small rectangular form- four stories high with tall rooflights penetrating the volume to form shafts of light- perches on the end of the Arts Block, closing the square and framing the prospect to Front Square over the 1937 Reading Room. The Hub will be a powerhouse of ideas; the honeycomb granite surface is broken and imprecise; it floats over the existing fabric; the canons of light crash through the form, disturbing expectations and creating zones and double heights for work and research. Its character is formed by its thin-ness; it can be seen through from side to side, the external envelope broken by recesses forming balconies and external spaces..........more

Advanced Engineering Building | Richard Kirk Architect

The prestigious $130 million Advanced Engineering Building (AEB) was awarded to RKA and Hassell joint venture through a design competition. The AEB will establish a new benchmark for sustainability and explore new possibilities for teaching and learning spaces.

AEB is an exciting and transformative opportunity. The vision for the AEB project is to create a building to celebrate, collaborate, create, learn, innovate and sustain, all within an integrated engineering landscape.

AEB is designed to stimulate innovation, education and awareness of advanced materials and manufacturing processes.

The structure of the building will be as open as possible, to allow a high level of visibility of processes and equipment to visitors and staff alike.

AEB will facilitate the transformation of engineering education through all aspects of research, postgraduate training and undergraduate education.....more

Hawaii Preparatory Academy | Kamuela | Hawaii | Flansburgh Architects

In this new 6,100 square foot renewable-energy research laboratory, students will study, design, and evaluate renewable-energy technologies. The award-winning facility meets the Living Building Challenge, a threshold that exceeds the USGBC's Platinum LEED rating. It produces all of its own energy needs, harvests rainwater to meet its potable water needs, and provides natural ventilation and views to 100% of its occupied spaces. Sophisticated energy models were used to form the shape and fenestration of the building during the design......more

Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer | Adelaide | Australia | Woodhead

Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer incorporating the LIVESTRONG Cancer Research Centre is a strategic health reform project for Australia. Part of the Flinders Medical Centre, the LIVESTRONG Cancer Research Centre will be a place of excellence, unique in its strategic focus on the scientific pursuit of novel preventative and screening detection strategies, the translation of these into community and clinical benefit, and the provision of multidisciplinary cancer care at all stages from health, through diagnosis, treatment and end-stage disease. A key feature of the centre is its capacity to integrate research across a number of basic disciplines and clinical sciences. The architectural concept focuses on several key areas; presenting an image of strong identity, an integrated research facility at the leading edge of research into the cancer treatment, and a place of healing, well-being and hope......more

Hawaii Preparatory Academy | Kamuela, Hawaii | Flansburgh Architects

In this new 6,100 square foot renewable-energy research laboratory, students will study, design, and evaluate renewable-energy technologies. The award-winning facility meets the Living Building Challenge, a threshold that exceeds the USGBC's Platinum LEED rating. It produces all of its own energy needs, harvests rainwater to meet its potable water needs, and provides natural ventilation and views to 100% of its occupied spaces. Sophisticated energy models were used to form the shape and fenestration of the building during the design......more

Research and Training Center | MAX IV | Lund Sweden | 3XN

3XNs proposal for the MAX IV particle accelerator in Lund, Sweden, is designed with the circle as a defining theme throughout. The facilities spread out in ever-widening circles with the MAX IV as the sculptural centerpiece. The circular building is the focal point of the area’s activity and energy, surrounded by green areas containing slim poplars and cherry trees.

The expression of the building reflects a close relationship between nature and science. By integrating the building within nature, the building and the landscape become united, forming a harmonious, light and clear whole. As the function of the building is particle acceleration, it inspires the circular theme which creates spaces around the main accelerator; spaces which can be modified to accommodate training, technical facilities etc. Thus, the design and the layout of the MAX IV are created in order to ensure a dynamic, inspiring and functional research environment.

The building’s facade is composed of slender rings, reflecting the circular theme in yet another format and at the same time referring to traditional Scandinavian jewellery and chain mail. The subtle exterior elements form a light, beautiful and consistent pattern resulting in the MAX IV achieving a visually simple and yet detailed strong expression......more

HENN StudioB wins 1st prize in the competition for a Nanotech Research and Development Park in Suzhou, China.

" The concept for Nano-Polis, a Nanotech Research and Development Park in the city of Suzhou drew its inspiration from both traditional Chinese Urban Planning as well as modern science. Since nanotechnology is the primary focus of the development, the arrangement and planning of the building mass was done with consideration to scale and fractal logic. The programmatic needs of the site are divided into sizes S, M, L, and XL, which are further subdivided and arranged according to specific functions. This scalar logic integrates various scales from urban to nano and provides opportunities for the buildings to interact with the users at an intimate human scale as well as creating large iconic landmarks within the site. Like most traditional Chinese cities, Nano-Polis assumes a rectilinear shape with a clearly defined border and staggered internal connections. Also the Idea of the fractal can be found in traditional Chinese cities that are assembled in a recursive logic by blocks, areas, districts, quarters and boroughs, from S to XL respectively. The overall development includes a cluster of high and medium-rise buildings surrounding a central plaza. This area houses most of the administrative, exhibition, conference and public areas as well as temporary housing facilities. This iconic centre is surrounded by a transitional “green belt” which references the traditional Chinese gardens that Suzhou is known for. A natural river flows east to west through the site which feeds a series of ponds, canals, and water features throughout this zone. This green buffer zone connects by a series of shared roofscapes, courtyards and galleries to the outer ring: The entire complex is defined by a dense belt of research and production facilities that create a defined urban edge to the surrounding context. The design of Nano-Polis employs a variety of environmentally responsible systems into its planning. Innovative technologies such as solar harvesting and rainwater collection work together with simple strategies of pedestrian access and public transportation to decrease energy consumption while creating a comfortable place to live and work. ".......more

studioMAS | The Biovac Vaccine Laboratory | Ndabeni | Cape Town | South Africa

INTRODUCTION
The Biovac vaccine laboratory in Ndabeni, Cape Town, is a place of serious science, but also of innovation and invention. The brief calls for a lab block with a small office component taking advantage of views west. The clinical QC laboratory has to comply with stringent international standards to accredit Biovac the right to manufacture and test Vaccines in SA.

RATIONALE
The building, with its central double volume, mediates between the admin wing and the lab, tying disparate working groups together. The simple layout of laboratory and offices with sun control skin is elevated to allow for a future lab. Windows are cut into the laboratory wherever required. The sunscreens are incredibly simply put together, being glued to a rudimentary galvanized steel frame using double-sided tape. This inventiveness in the face of economy and budgets is also evident in red perspex pendant lights. The Biovac centre has been credited as prescient of the infection that is coming in South African architecture offering opportunity for playful invention and creativity........more

COMPLETION DATE
2007

Marine Research Center | Kuta Beach, Bali, Indonesia | solus4

A 2,500 SM
Marine Research Center Located 100 meters away, parallel to the shore of Kuta Beach, Bali, Indonesia. The program is composed of three main components: public, semipublic and private. The spaces vary from underwater labs, scientist bedrooms and aquatic garden to sea water pool, swimming pool terrace, bar and an auditorium. The spaces are located above and under water and allow the visitors and scientist to take full advantage of the amazing landscape that surrounds the project. This project represents a new typology for stationary in-water based projects reached by boat, which in the past have been mostly relegated as merely work, non-destination platforms which do not take into account the design possibilities that the in-water sites present.
CONCEPT:
Three major events generate tsunamis; meteors, landslides, and large earthquakes. Underwater earthquakes—the most common type in Indonesia—with epicenters close to coast lines, form the conceptual basis of the architectural proposal. It uses the initial elliptical pattern and cross section diagram of the tsunami wave, one of the main focus of the centre’s research and prevention efforts, as the morphology generators and guides of programmatic organization. The design is both aesthetically imposing and seamlessly integrated into its aquatic natural environment. The result is a very fluid structure with an immediate and direct visual connection to the exterior. The center will serve not only as an architectural icon for Bali but also as an international model for modern sustainable design with its use of on-site renewable energy resources through its integration of such technologies as tidal wave energy generation, natural ventilation, rain water collection, passive solar energy, low E glass, and high reflectance fiber glass materials.....more

Taiwan Centers for Disease Control Complex | Biolab Squadron Taiwan | Studio Nicoletti Associati

More pictures here

Biolab Squadron Taiwan - Building Information:

Team Leader: Studio Nicoletti Associati, Rome - Manfredi Nicoletti & Luca Nicoletti

Project Manager: Luca Maugeri

Local Partners: ARCO Architects and Designers Ltd., Taipei - Tony Y.T. Chen

Consultants:
Medical consultants: Istituto Nazionale per le Malattie Infettive Lazzaro Spallanzani, Rome, Dr. Giuseppe Ippolito

Structures + Facades: RFR Stuttgart -Paris, Mathias Kutterer and Henry Bardsley

Facades: Permasteelisa, Vittorio Veneto, Riccardo Casini

Lighting: Laura Borsani, Rome

Sustainability: HOARE LEA, London, Thomas Lefevre

Local Consultants:

Plants: Parsons Brinckerhoff International, Inc. Taiwan, Charles Tan

Medical and labs: LD Asia - Llewelyn Davies Hong Kong, Yin Lee Chong - Dti Arch. & Designers, Robert Chao

Structures: Federal Engineering Consultant Inc. Taiwan, Eric Chyng.Maw Su

Landscape: SOHO Lansdcape architecture, Taiwan, John YC Chen

Traffic: Everest Engineering Consultants, Inc., Taiwan, Jeff Lee

Innovia TECHNOPOLE: Service Platform and technology business incubator: Choisey-Damparis | France | Serero Architects

Restricted - Project winner
2008
Client: Communauté de Communes du Grand Dole
Surface: 2 500 m2
Amount of Work: 2 700 000 € H.T.
Design: Serero Architects, (David Serero, Taichi Sunayama, Fabrice Zaini, Louisa Gouesnard, Jean Philippe Sanfourche, Yoichi Ozawa) BET: Iosis NC
Text from: Serero Architects
If the concepts of technology and nature have often been opposed to our tent at Innovia Technology of creating a link between them, to reconcile the ideas of progress and sustainability, tradition and innovation. We designed a project with a strong identity using a traditional construction material, wood, whose performance has been greatly developed recently by changes in methods of calculation and analysis of structures. Our project involves the structural capacities, its aesthetic qualities in front cladding and flooring and very good resistance to fire

Research Centre- Field Station on Horse Island | Kristin Mueller

This project called for a field station on Horse Island, a protected island owned by Yale University for research purposes and part of the Thimble Island chain a few miles off the Connecticut shoreline. With the project I chose to focus on the idea of habitat on the island. The design provides a constructed habitat for conditions that already exist on the island (tidepools, bird nesting areas, etc.), but is concentrated in a specific area for new research. Physical access to the rest of the island is limited to only the program pieces that require it. A system of walls and strategic patterning acts as a vehicle for the habitat and responds to the requirements for inhabitation, but also to structure. The walls serve as a framework for enclosed program volumes and the apertures within them are spaced in such a way so as to support the primary structure of the volumes. A modular prefabricated concrete system is employed for the production of the walls.
Text and images from:Kristin Mueller

TAIWAN CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL COMPLEX | PAUL PREISSNER ARCHITECTS

LOCATION Hsinchu Biomedical Science Park, Taiwan
CLIENT Taiwan Centers for Disease Control / Construction and Planning Agency (CPA), Ministry of the Interior
PROGRAM Administration Center, NHCC National Health Command Center, Public Service Center, Education Center, Research & Diagnostic Center, Storage, Electrical Network and MIS Center
AREA Phase 1: 33,500 SM / Phase 2: 29,000 SM
COST Phase 1: NT$1,580,000,000 (US$52 million)/Phase 2: NT$703,000,000 (US$23 million)
STATUS Design 2008 (Competition) CONSULTING ENGINEERING Buro Happold

Texts and images from:PAUL PREISSNER

Michelin Campus RDI | Mario Cucinella

Groupe Michelin held an international competition for a new 39,450m2 research centre on their headquarters industrial site, Projet Urbaland - Site de Ladoux. MC A were one of four practices to make the final shortlist.
The linear building develops over 300m and bridges across the main site thoroughfare creating a new inhabited connection. Inside, a central full height space is like a dense urban street ‘la rue de la recherche’. The idea is that the architecture of the building reflects the fact that it is a place of creativity, scientific innovation and social interaction. All the offices and laboratories look into the central space that is both an architectural feature and a fundamental element of the environmental strategy. Above the atrium an active shading roof gives form to the building and filters light while producing solar energy. The workspaces are conceived as organic cells that are aggregated as necessary to give maximum efficiency and flexibility. The building is integrated into the industrial territory with a 34,500m2 landscaping plan.
Source: Mario Cucinella

Victoria University Online Training Centre | Lyons

New multi media research centre for Victoria University’s Department of Business Studies and Arts Design and Multimedia. The building’s skin responds to the landscape context and the interior program for the building. Digitally printed panels create an artificial, digital terrain. Winner of 2002 Victorian Architecture Medal.
Texts and images from:LYONS