Sir Alexander Fleming Building
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Dennis Gilbert/View, Jame Morris and Nigel Young (website) Download Original
Six storey medical research facility with laboratories arranged around the perimeter, and desk spaces for researchers in open galleries set around a central atrium
At the building’s heart is a research forum on five levels where research work not directly associated with the laboratory takes place. It provides an open arena where researchers can meet their colleagues, and forms the hub of the building's primary circulation system. Standard and specialist laboratories are wrapped around the forum, as are undergraduate teaching spaces, administration and a cafe.
The forum widens as it rises, creating open-plan terraces for research students on the second and fourth floors, where the perimeter is lined with study carrels. Sculpted rooflights introduce a combination of north light for optimum working conditions and controlled sunlight to bring sparkle into the building. Fully glazed at its northern end - the site's only open aspect - the forum looks onto the Queen's Lawn and Queen's Tower, the last fragment of the 1890s campus.
The building has a cast in-situ concrete frame with a steel roof structure. Externally, both brick and Portland stone are used to integrate the new building into its context. Internally, timber panels infilling the expressed fair-faced concrete frame are pierced by the windows of offices looking down into the semi-public entrance concourse.
Data
- Begun: Jan 1996
- Completed: Sep 1998
- Floor area: 25,000m2
- Sectors: Education, Healthcare
- Total cost: £40M
- Tender date: Dec 1995
- Procurement: Construction Management
- Address: Imperial College Road, London, SW7 1AZ, United Kingdom
Professional Team
- Architect: Foster + Partners
- Client: Imperial College and South Kensington Millennium Commission
- Structural engineer: Waterman Partnership
- Services: WSP Consulting Engineers
- Quantity surveyor: Davis, Langdon and Everest
- Construction: Schal International
- Lighting: Claude Engle
- Acoustics: Sandy Brown Associates
- Fire: Warrington Fire
Suppliers
- Atrium glazed roof: Lakesmere
- Atrium Open Plan Workstations: Kilby & Gayford (Building)
- Demountable, Sliding and Folding Partitions: Unilock Ltd
- Glazed Screens & Doors: Saint Gobain Solaglas Ltd
- Roofing: Coverite Ltd
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