Heatherwick Studio has offered a construction update on its design for the UCB Windlesham Surrey Science Research Hub in the United Kingdom. When completed, the building will serve as a hub for the Belgian biopharmaceutical company UCB.
In new photos released by the firm, the project's cross-laminated timber structure can be seen following its recent topping out. The CLT structure, described by Heatherwick Studio as “possibly one of the most complicated CLT structures in Europe,” took two years of design and eight months of construction to deliver. The novelty of the structure comes from its curved form, which serves not only as the main structure but the feature finish for the building.
Designed in collaboration with executive architect Veretec, the three-story timber extension will be partially submerged into the site’s existing campus, connecting various wings of UCB’s R&D building. As part of the project, several other existing buildings across the campus are to be retrofitted.
7 Comments
They just recycled the South African museum didn't they?
Heatherwick Studios has taken productization of architecture to the next level. They practically offer a product brochure for clients to choose from: Hollowed cylinders, tree trunks, sloped tents, lantern windows, lotus balconies etc.
House styles are a staple of architecture - the International Style saw SOM bring its house style all around the world.
SOM's house style had a basis in structure and rational solutions to needs. Heatherwick Studios offering is nothing but formal gimmicks.
Indeed! Heatherwick is a stylist ... I don't think he even is a great industrial designer as his studio rarely gets involved in the making of things - they're here to craft a silhouette, an idea, a logo turned physical. And developers love them for that.
I'm probably being sentimental, but it seems in days past an architect would establish a reputation from a consensus of architects, scholars, critics, theorists, etc. (Mies, for example), and the developers and corporate powers would come and listen to them and follow their advice and example. That process has been bypassed. The developers go straight to their anointed darlings.
What does CLT stand for? Critical Lumber Theory?
Ah, I see it—cross-laminated timber.
There is no sense of scale or relationship. They've succeeded in making a fairly modest space look claustrophobic and oppressive, in a funky sort of way. What a waste of wood.
The obvious contrast would be Kahn's Exeter library. A much smaller atrium has a much larger sense of space, ceremonial and expressive. This space feels open yet at the same time intimate. Everything is related to use and the human scale, and the geometry in concrete holds it all together.
Kahn's work is inspired by a sense of what it means to be human, to be human in the world. Heatherwick's looks to be based on nothing more than bad dreams brought on by indigestion.
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