The basic requirements laid down for the designer were four fold and were the base of the concept design study.
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The necessity to provide a building to allow meeting the requested technical performances for the short and medium term, requirements for the long term being unknown at the design stage and therefore calling for "flexible" easy to revamp building internals to meet changing needs.
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Ability to meet all current and envisaged Health Safety & Environment standards.
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The necessity to allow for extension depending on economic needs.
It is indeed feasible to extend the constructed volumes by a factor 3 compared to the present situation. (The approved "plan of site" allows for extra modules next to the existing wings, 2 extra wings at the back of the lab consisting of 11 modules and 2 more machine halls).
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A balance between capital and running cost.
Given the nature of the environment it was quite obvious to use bricks in the construction of external walls, deliberately made in a plain and almost austere way. This relative austerity of the construction is further found inside the building where white painted concrete and exposed concrete blocks is to be found alongside with tiled floor and wooden carpentry. "High tech" is reserved to research equipment.
Phase I construction started in August 1986 and ended in December 1987.
Phase II (addition of two labs and office modules) took place between April 91 and March 92.
The research centre features different types of premises: laboratories, offices, storages, development and production machinery halls.
Services are mainly located in the central part of the building. The lowest floor of the wing houses storage, testing labs, small development equipment and utilities sub-stations. At the extreme west side of the site, a small workshop, chemicals waste storage, utilities generation and distribution buildings complete the visible part of the construction. Under the service road (sized for 32 tons trucks) an impressive "tunnel" of 4.5m x 4.5m and almost 400m long distributes the various utilities and collects the effluents. Derived from the modular internal layout with associated advantages of repetition and flexibility, the labs are regrouped in big units of 27m x 10m. They are connected to the rest of the building through an internal "alley". From this alley, side corridors give access to offices and development halls (42m x 36m).
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Concept / 