Thesis title:
Life Science Campus Basel. The search for an innovative research environment
Date of discussion:
December 2020
Students:
Aboud Kassim, Jakub Mizeria
Professors of the Studio:
Francesca Battisti (Architectural Design)
Grigor Angjeliu (Structural Design)
Lavinia Chiara Tagliabue (Technology and design in BIM Environment)
Francesco Romano (Building Services Design)
Giovanni Dotelli (Innovative Materials for Architecture)
Abstract:
Designed for the Faculties of Philosophy and Natural Sciences of the University of Basel, in particular the Departments of Chemistry, Physics, Nanoscience and Anatomy, the Life Science Campus in Basel aims to create a “new landscape”. One for the city – a place of interaction for citizens and academic community – while the other is more “inward-looking”, an innovative research environment.
Perceived as a unique entity, the building plays an important role in the fusion of Univercity and City.
The new life science cluster becomes a threshold from the first to the latter or vice versa, defining new rules to let so distant morphologies, typologies, size, proportion, scale and function, find new forms of balance.
The Kollegienhaus is the historical main reference to set the campus around a courtyard, revealing a gently carved landscape – an outdoor amphitheater and entrances to underground exhibition spaces to be discovere – and feature multiple entrances from the city and the rest of the campus. Moreover, the merge of the distinctive typologies, residential and single standing university blocks, blurs the line to obtain maximum incoherence.
The new complex is composed of 3 elements: base, podium and towers. Characterized with organic shapes and curvilinear forms the architectonic ensemble recreate a flowing movement as the passages interweave the Science Square. The upper levels form a uniform plate, the podium, enclosing the square. Above the podium, a green roof terrace for recreational activities, four distinct volumes arise, completely glazed with a technically advanced double skin that gives them lightness and simplicity.