Description

The destruction of numerous buildings of the Imperial College during World War II left the scientific campus without a clear urban layout. To ensure an integrated and coordinated future development, in the beginning of the nineties a master plan was establish­ed defining building plots and massing of the most important building projects; it also stipulated essential planning and design criteria.

The first building to be erected in accordance with this master plan is the Sir Alexander Fleming Building whose advanced architecture represents progress and the great potential of biomedical research and is to give rise to unprecedented interdisciplinary scientific exchange of ideas on a social and intellectual level.

The available site was a gap between two institute buildings to the east and west. Towards the south, only a small path separates the new building from the existing Science Museum. Only towards the north the building affords relatively unrestricted views onto Queen’s Law and Queen’s Tower – the last remaining fragments of the original campus of 1890.

The scheme makes skilful use of the restrictive site and proposes a compact introverted building with a five-storey light-flooded communication space at its centre and research spaces arranged around it. The central space is reminiscent of an agora and gets increasingly wider and brighter towards the top as the floor areas around it get smaller. The saw-tooth roof covering the atrium provides an interesting and optimised mixed lighting scenario which is composed of indirect northern light and direct sunlight in points.

Open galleries with work desks surround the central space. Laboratories are arranged adjacent to the galleries. Their modular layout and strict service grid that includes central service shafts along the main façades ensure the required variability in terms of size and technical equipment. A service zone comprising equipment, cool storage, and special laboratories partly constitutes a dark zone that is located adjacent to the existing building or faces south and receives daylight. This U-shaped typical floor plan with various access corridors ensures short distances between related spaces and close cooperation between scientists conducting theoretical studies and scientists working in the laboratories.

The north-facing entrance area – comprising individual office cells and connecting bridges that are also used for informal meetings – with its fully glazed main façade affords attractive views of the historic part of the campus.

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