Description

A new generation of research buildings is changing the appearance of the University of California in Los Angeles campus. Among the projects that have been realised since 1990, the Molecular Sciences Building has had to meet the highest requirements in terms of technical services. In addition to these complex and specific requirements the building was also to serve as ”future gateway” and vivid plaza for scientific communication.

The architects split the building into two main wings which are connected at the corner by an expressive cylindrical open stair tower that appears like a hinge between the two buildings. The eastern wing is accessed via a central interior corridor and exterior walkways around its perimeter. Chemical laboratories are stacked on five storeys and arranged on either side of the central corridor. Study rooms are allocated behind the façade and additional offices are situated at its southern end. The west wing comprises two interior access corridors on four levels. Cold stores and rooms for technical equipment are arranged in the dark zone between the biological laboratories. Supplementary offices are positioned at its western gable end.

The main architectural features of the building are the components expressing technical services. Plant rooms are positioned on the roofs of both wings; they connect to vertical air-supply ducts that form an integral part of the façade structure. The exhaust system utilises air-extracts, double installation walls, and single shafts in the core of the chemical wing. The nearly 300 air-extracts that had to be installed inside the laboratories inspired an architecture that plays with the theme of ”ventilation”. The complex system of air-supply, conditioning, distribution, and extract became an integral part of the structure and the architectural language. Three square ventilation openings accentuate the entrance façade.

The use of material as well as the façade design reflecting the inner organisation of the building follow the notion of ”form follows function” exactly and logically. Various concrete textures, the proportion of open and solid areas, and the protruding and recessed elements give the chemical and biological laboratories, offices, seminar rooms, and even the sanitary spaces a very individual architectural expression.

The reinforced concrete frame structure possesses a powerful, almost monumental appearance and enhances the campus with its unique presence and high degree of individuality.

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