Description

The new research centre was built on a tight site in a bland urban context and involved the connection of an adjacent existing building. Its architectural nobility fulfils an important function: While the other buildings on Sutton Campus of Royal Marsden NHS Trust Hospital keep a modest and unspectacular profile, the research centre was funded by a charity organisation via fundraising campaigns. Hence, the donators’ commitment is to visibly and physically manifest itself in a respectable, strong, and unique architecture.

As a result of the direct connection of the new building with its adjacent three-storey neighbour a secluded garden could be created. A surprisingly rustic wooden bridge crosses the lawn diagonally and – diving through underneath a recessed building corner – leads to the main entrance. Approaching the building on this path from the garden the onlooker is suddenly confronted with the new building whose materials –light-grey sheet metal cladding with black joints, neatly processed in-situ concrete painted grey, clear and obscured glazing, slender anthracite window profiles – support the elegance and clarity of the design concept.

The complex institute building is heavily equipped with mechanical services. On the two laboratory floors, the functional and technical requirements were met with a consistent plan arrangement of all facilities on both sides of a central corridor. The laboratories comprise large individual service shafts. Their furnishings follow the clear design of the architecture. The quality of the laboratory environment was improved by the use of translucent glass spandrel panels behind which work desks are situated. The technical control rooms are located on the top floor. On the ground floor, studies for theoretical work with a normal degree of technical services are to be found; it also houses a small double-height entrance hall containing an open gallery with direct access to the adjacent building.

The steel structure of the cubic volume has no corner columns. The horizontal façade pattern supports the volumetric quality of the building, whereas all other elements like the entrance, stairs, and the housing of mechanical services were treated as individual architectural elements enhancing the building’s elegance. The entire urban context benefits from the architecture of this building, which prefers thorough elegant detailing to loud and superficial effects.

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Originally published in: Hardo Braun, Dieter Grömling, Research and Technology Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2005.