CPMG’s £30 million new bioscience centre lights up Nottingham
A mixed-use science and business hub has opened in the East Midlands, with facilities that include laboratories, office space, chemical and solvent storage rooms and a café.
The £30 million new building, part of the Midlands Engine initiative and funded by Nottingham City Council, will accommodate up to 350 new users in 6,900m² of space laid out over five floors.
A solid, concrete-panel faced ground floor contains offices and conference facilities, and takes up the full footprint of the site. This acts as a podium to the four upper four storeys, a simple cuboid form that is offset from it and cantilevers slightly out. These floors have extensive glazing with bronze anodised detailing and are dedicated to more specialised laboratory space and support spaces.
The most striking element of the exterior design is the integration of a 55 metre by 17 metre artwork Corona by the artist Wolfgang Buttress. It is constructed from more than 1,000 stainless steel cables which wrap around and shroud the southern and western façades of the building. This is designed to act both as solar screen and provide a distinctive marker for the building, particularly at night when it illuminates. Its illumination is linked directly to signals from NASA satellites orbiting the sun, with the artwork’s glow intensity responding directly to the intensity and location of solar flares emanating from the sun’s surface.