University of California Los Angeles, California NanoSystems Institute, Los Angeles, California
From Archiplanet
| Univeristy of California Los Angeles, California NanoSystems Institute | |
| Designer | Rafael Vinoly Architects PC, New York, New York, USA |
| Location | Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Date | to 2007 |
| Building Type | Institutional |
| Street Address | 570 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Notes |
Contents |
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| Building Details |
The site UCLA selected for its California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI)—a narrow, steep lot adjacent to a parking structure on its dense South Campus—tendered a number of physical challenges. Likewise, nanotechnology, a multidisciplinary field addressing the control of matter on a molecular level, presented a unique set of programmatic hurdles, including highly specific laboratory requirements. Rafael Viñoly Architects addressed both considerations while keeping the client’s goal of interdisciplinary cooperation and socialization in mind, supplying state-of-the-art physical resources to keep students and researchers in step with scientific advances.
CNSI represents one of four Science and Innovation Institute categories within the state's university system, established to foster academic collaboration with industry and to enable rapid commercialization of discoveries in nanoscience and nanotechnology. The building's design was developed through rounds of owner-architect collaboration, during which assessment and discussion of the client’s needs resulted in a more dynamic understanding of the daunting site.
Initially considered an obstacle, the parking structure turned into a design impetus. Constructing three floors over part of the parking facility maximized the building’s potential and opened new possibilities for laboratories and common areas. The result was a partially below-grade, seven-story building with a central courtyard intersected by suspended bridges and stairs, and a main entrance facing the other structures on the Court of Sciences.
The open-air entrance lobby and courtyard inspire interdisciplinary collegiality, directly engaging the adjacent pedestrian zones. The lobby connects to research floors and the adjacent parking structure through the zigzag network of bridges, facilitating an atmosphere of communication more commonly seen in compact buildings.
Both inside and outside, the CNSI establishes a distinctive user environment: the crisscrossed center courtyard enlivens the UCLA campus’ predominant form of structure-with-center-atrium, workstations are personally controlled through low-level ambient and task lighting, and acoustic buffer areas create interior quiet zones. For a complex and small site, the CNSI creates a large variety of pedestrian spaces, using innovative structural solutions—both within and around the building.
“This is a building that houses a transformational field of new technologies,” comments Rafael Viñoly, “While respecting the strong character of the campus, the design offers the flexibility and openness that reflects the way in which this work is performed: large undetermined technical spaces with unexpected modes of circulation that encourage random interactivity. Extending over the existing parking structure, the building generates a new structural site that didn't exist before.”
