Description
The architectural competition for this laboratory building was held by Cologne University Hospital. The urban and functional requirements of the brief posed special challenges for its design. It accommodates three research centres under one roof: the Zentrum für Molekularmedizin Köln (ZMMK), the Zentrum für Genomforschung (ZFG) – both of them academic facilities – and the Cell Center Cologne (CCC) as a private institute.
The site offered relatively little space for the implementation of the required programme. It is bisected by an important circulation route – the so-called ”student path” – which constitutes the main pedestrian and cycling link between the hospital and the Cologne University campus. As the brief explicitly asked for a common main entrance for the three institutes the design had to ensure that the ”student path” would not split the entrance area into two separate zones.
The conceptual design is based on a simple object-type building at the crossing of the street and the ”student path”. The course of the pedestrian path is elegantly integrated into a two-storey joint foyer space. At the same time, this solution delineates the desired synergetic exchange of private and university based research.
The homogeneous façades consistently reflect the idea of a monolithic solitaire: all sides of the building are clad with perforated aluminium panels leading to an almost septic technical expression. The upward-folding solar blinds provide for a vivid and suspenseful composition. The extremely compact volume with its highly functional and flexible interior has two access corridors per floor. It is composed of two parallel volumes with an enclosed nine-storey void containing galleries providing areas for communication and exchange of ideas. This space supports the interdisciplinary cooperation and interaction of the different research teams.
Between the three central cores containing vertical circulation, service shafts, and sanitary spaces, dark rooms such as cold-storage rooms, equipment, and storage rooms are located. Along the main façades, laboratories and their respective working areas and offices alternate. This modular structure allows for flexible management of external lettings and the allocation of variously sized groups of rooms to changing users.
Drawings
Ground floor
Schematic sketch of building
Typical floor
Longitudinal section through voids
Cross section through enrance area and “student path”
Photos
The perforated exterior aluminium skin with upward-folding solar blinds creates a rational and clean façade
Nine-storey voids provide daylight
Originally published in: Hardo Braun, Dieter Grömling, Research and Technology Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2005.