For a building to survive in the 21st century, it has to be flexible.
People need to move from open-concept designs to quiet places of solitude to accommodate the work they're doing. If a building can't match a person's needs, the work will suffer.
That's the challenge Danish design firm Henning + Larsen was tasked with in designing Lund University's research building, Forum Medicum, located in Sweden.
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According to design director Louis Becker, the building had to join two pre-existing academic buildings, so flexibility was a factor from the start.
The design ultimately resulted in a two-floor plan in which the bottom floor connected to the pre-existing buildings, but the top floor was rotated about 45 degrees to align with the nearby road.
Unlike the surrounding halls, Forum Medicum has floor-to-ceiling windows, with access to the slatted, skylit roof.
Inside there are both classrooms and workspaces, Becker says.
The research lab isn't a so-called "wet lab," meaning there are no fluids or potential explosions that could ruin the fancy new design.
In addition to rooms offering movable walls, the building itself allows for easy renovations.
"Academia works so fast in terms of the new ways of teaching and the size of groups," Becker says.
That's why just about the only walls that are held in place are those that directly support the structure. All others can be taken down or transplanted to change the nature of the work environment.
Even while the building is under construction, the university can decide how it wants the rooms to be laid out.
"It gives them the possibility to decide quite late in the process what kind of configuration they'll have on their floors," Becker says.
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