Description

After the fusion of CIBA and GEIGY the corporation was owner of four research facilities for crop protection and yet another one after the fusion with Sandoz in 1996. To amend this inefficient decentralised situation the new Novartis Corporation decided to build a central agrobiological research centre.

Through the particular arrangement of the buildings, footpaths at ground level, and the successive layout of courtyards of varying sizes, the complex provides optimum functionality, orientation, and lighting. The symmetrical complex is orientated in north-south direction. In successive order, the three-storey laboratory and office building, followed by the application and climatic chambers, the greenhouses and finally the horticulture have been arranged symmetrically. Facilities are linked via glazed passages. This linear arrangement corresponds with the research processes within the main sections Disease Control and Insect Control. All four areas are connected within these respective sections via east-west and north-south orientated paths. The zoning, which mainly follows functional considerations, is also motivated by a graded security concept for toxicological or genetic experiments.

The southern laboratory and office building framed by a glazed service floor on top and glazed staircases on both ends forms the entrance to the complex. Both sections have a separate entrance. On the ground floor, the mentioned glazed passages are linked to the middle zone of the entrance building and connect it to the application and climatic chambers.

The middle zone accommodates the cores including lift, stair, sanitary rooms, and secondary spaces. This zone also contains the central shafts for the technical infrastructure. They feed horizontal lines along the corridors so that the service connections to office and laboratory areas can flexibly adapt to changes of the layout.

Escape stairs at either end and in the centre of the building split up each floor into two equally sized fire compartments.

Within clearly structured spaces, the complex offers qualities like openness, spaces for teamwork, and an inspiring research environment. Each section comprises a lounge and cafeteria on the first floor. The ”intellectual centre” is the shared two-storey library at the building’s centre. As do the entrances, it juts out of the façade.

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