Description
The building is situated at the far end of the main axis of the Biomedical Research Campus in Berlin-Buch. The prominent curve on one of its corners, which houses the main entrance, reaches out to this axis. The organically shaped envelope also reflects the adjacent forest and the little brook bordering onto the premises in the east.
The design juxtaposes a ”hard” orthogonal core containing laboratories with a softly undulating envelope. The curved façades change from a glazed curtain wall in front of the office zones to a more conventional band façade in front of the laboratories.
Offices are located east and west of the laboratory zone. The glazed curtain wall consists of transparent and solid elements that act as casement windows, spandrel panels, or solar protection devices. Raised floors in the office area contain full services for data processing that can be extended as required. Many scientists take advantage of the office equipment to control their experiments in the laboratories online.
The middle zone houses highly equipped laboratories. Façades here are recessed, making this zone recognisable. Escape balconies follow the outline of the building and prevent potential vertical fire spread. On the south side, they cantilever further than on the north side, thus contributing to solar protection.
The laboratory area is split into two zones of different character. On the north side, classical laboratories are located and serviced via service shafts located between access corridors and labs. They comprise laboratory furnishings arranged perpendicular to the façade and writing desks allocated next to the windows. The central dark zone houses rooms for equipment, cooling cells, rooms for chemicals and solvents as well as storage rooms. Laboratories on the south side have been arranged in a different way: shafts for media, gas, and water supply are part of the façade. The interior wall facing the corridor is a flexible drywall partition that allows parts of the central dark zone to be combined with the spaces to create a variety of laboratory sizes up to 350 m².
Ducts for ventilation and air-conditioning of the laboratories run in central cores that enable horizontal servicing without the intersection of ducts. This leads to relatively low ceiling heights of approx. 3.75 m.
Drawings
Site plan
Schematic sketch of building
Ground floor
Second to fourth floors
Longitudinal section
Elevation
Photos
The organically shaped envelope takes up the scenery of the adjacent forest and little brook bordering onto the premises in the east
The central stair inside the entrance hall serves as main vertical access and focal point of social life
Originally published in: Hardo Braun, Dieter Grömling, Research and Technology Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2005.