Maurice Wohl Neuroscience Institute
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View from the street
Stale Eriksen Download Original
A research facility for King's College London that reconciles the technical demands of a specialist laboratory with the needs of those who work in it.
The institute sits within the footprint of a series of terraced houses. It is read firstly as a series of three distinct volumes, with the ground-floor plinth clad in concrete slabs containing a basalt aggregate. To the east a second volume is dominated by large windows. The third is a stack of laboratories, clad in perforated brass shutters, which have been allowed to patinate.
The shuttering system wraps around the building on its second, third and fourth floors. Ostensibly the mechanically operated, perforated brass shutters are to compensate for heat gain along a completely glazed frontage, yet the purpose of full glazing also permits a generous view into the building. Each bay can control its own shutters mechanically.
The building appears to sit on a plinth of precast concrete. The ground floor is articulated to reflect the relationship of the spaces inside with its landscape; the plinth is cut away to reveal less private spaces such as a prominent, fully-glazed café. The white precast concrete panels are softened by a natural stone mix.
Data
- Begun: May 2011
- Completed: Jun 2015
- Floor area: 9,611m2
- Sectors: Education, Healthcare
- Address: 5 Cutcombe Road, London, SE5 9RT, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: Allies and Morrison with PM Devereux
- Client: King’s College London
- Structural engineer: AECOM
- Quantity surveyor: Turner & Townsend
- Architect and Project Manager: Mace
- Main contractor: Morgan Sindall
- Service engineer: Hoare Lea
- Landscape architect: PM Devereux
- Fire consultant: Lawrence Webster Forrest
- Planning consultant : Metropolis