Description
The building is located on a rectangular, east-west orientated site. It belongs to the campus of one of the leading technology institutes of India. According to the brief it is divided into two wings – a laboratory building and a common multipurpose zone. Thus, the different areas can be horizontally and vertically arranged according to their function and the required technical services.
The laboratory building, which consists of three modules in a row, comprises altogether 16 large laboratories with 80 m² net floor area each. Each laboratory has access to its own office space and contains writing desks along the windows. There are two interior corridors per floor; the middle zone of the two western modules contains service areas including cold storages, zones for technical equipment, and autoclave rooms. A building-height glass-covered atrium is located in the eastern module. It opens up the interior corridors and creates a pleasant and inviting atmosphere. This effect is added to by glazed elements between the hallways and the laboratories. The central module contains two laboratory levels; the outer modules are three storeys high. By means of this variation in height the building responds to the existing context and structures the substantial building bulk.
Plant rooms on the basement level distribute services via a dense grid of individual vertical shafts, this way providing the required flexibility for future changes of laboratory and equipment standards.
A shared building comprises a lecture hall that can also be used by neighbouring institutes. It also accommodates a number of seminar rooms, a library, and the management of the institute. These spaces are arranged around a two-storey, freely shaped forecourt that is dominated by a spiral stair reminiscent of the DNA double helix.
Other measures taken by the architects to break down the scale of the building are numerous projections and recesses in the façade as well as rhythmical changes in the material. The solid construction has façades with punched windows or horizontal strip windows clad with facing brick or stone. These materials pay reference to the immediate urban environment, which is also solidly constructed and shows brick or concrete façades, as it is customary in Kanpur.
Drawings
Photos
The scale of the massive complex was broken down by courtyards, terraces, and pergolas
The three-storey atrium featuring an open stair enlivens the building
Originally published in: Hardo Braun, Dieter Grömling, Research and Technology Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2005.