Description

To unite the research laboratories scattered across the country, the architects were commissioned in 1989 to design an outstanding research complex as centre and home of the think tank of the important Swedish pharmacy corporation Astra Hässle. As a result of the rapid developments in fundamental research in the fields of biology and pharmacy, the centre was growing through constant alterations and expansions. Furthermore, the fusion with the British Zeneca Group made the new AstraZeneca PLC a global player in pharmaceutical research and product development.

AstraZeneca’s outstanding R&D Centre provides scientists with state-of-the-art laboratories and constitutes an ideal platform of ideas for team-based research. In order to promote the creativity of the employees and encourage mutual exchange, it was decided to concentrate the little ”pockets of creativity” of individual laboratories in larger pools. As opposed to neutral and anonymous open plan offices, the designers opted for a new type of multi-purpose office. This Scandinavian version of the multi-purpose-principle was conceived to retain the privacy of the employees in their own ”sacred” compartments yet offer larger and exceptionally well-equipped laboratory spaces for the highly specialised research teams. These shared zones and various kinds of spatially differentiated lounge areas are to encourage social interaction and exchange of ideas. The highly communicative, open and transparent workplace design, which offers frequently changing views in and out of the building, forms the ideal backdrop for the intended effects.

The branching-out research centre comprises a net floor area of about 120,000 m². Red brick buildings of the sixties are scattered over the vast premises and combined with the new buildings to form a convincing urban and functional layout. The individually expressed building volumes based on a modular system are tied together by the use of aluminium and glass as exterior materials to form a functionally and formally consistent yet complex cluster.

The new laboratory buildings with their characteristic exterior cladding give the complex a high sense of individuality and the entire scheme a certain modular order that is pronounced by the limited range of materials. Precisely these laboratory units with their metal barrel roofs, aluminium and-glass façades and the prominent oversized extract pipes render the building a landmark.

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