Novartis Forum 3
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Christian Richters (website) Download Original
Five-storey office building in the Novartis Campus; a 20-hectare former industrial site developed for one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies
Forum Three was the first building to be completed for the Novartis Campus, a flagship building in a redevelopment project in a previously anonymous area of Basel.
The building contains offices, a large foyer space, interior vegetation,a bar, a lounge and support spaces.
The design has a 'cheerful' aesthetic on the exterior with a haphazard multicoloured facade of glass panels. The ever-changing composition of the facade give every part of the predominantly open-plan building an identity of it's own.
Aside from the facade there are two other key features; an outsize helical staircase clad in American walnut veneer, which winds its way through the four upper floors, and the 'plant room', which is in fact a dense cluster of mature trees and greenery that occupies the end of the building in the gap between the two layers of the facade.
Data
- Begun: 2003
- Completed: 2005
- Floor area: 8,848m2
- Sector: Office
- Tender date: 2002
- Address: Novartis Pharma AG, Fabrikstrasse, Basel, 4056, Switzerland
Professional Team 
- Architect: Diener and Diener, Helmut Federle, Gerold Wiederin
- Client: Novartis Pharma
- Cost planning: Büro für Bauökonomie
- Workplace design: Sevil Peach Gence Associates
- Structural engineer: Ernst Basler and Partner
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