Department of the Faculty of Biotechnology, UL

The new wing of the Faculty of Biotechnics creates a new open public space, surrounded on three sides, defined on the one hand by the design and function of the existing buildings, and on the other by the design of the new content wing. Our key design premise was to respect the existing design and use of the space with the new elements, and to simply add to it in terms of content. Another important principle is that outdoor areas should be considered as an extension of the teaching space, providing open training and experimental areas. In other words, the role of the space designer is limited to the infrastructural minimum, and the pedagogically conditioned and experimental transformation of the space is left to the user.

The public access programmes, i.e. the lecture theatres, the café and the restaurant, are located in the most visible and accessible part of the building, i.e. on the south side of the ground floor. All of them can be connected to the outside areas, which is particularly important for the café and restaurant. The café merges with the entrance lobby and forms the informal hub of the new building. The two new lecture theatres are connected to it, and the corridor leads down a gentle ramp to the restaurant. It is divided into a section for students and a section for researchers and teachers.
The staff offices are located directly above the lecture theatres, while the rest of the building is dedicated to laboratories, with limited access via a staircase and lift. The layout of each laboratory in the available building volume is determined by their required heights. The higher rooms are arranged on the northern part on two storeys and the lower rooms on the southern part on three storeys. The mezzanine space is connected by a common staircase, from where the different heights of the building are accessed via the main and intermediate landings.
The central and most prominent space in the building is the two-storey entrance lobby with a café. The lobby faces the west side of the building, where the Faculty Rosarium is located. This continues the space towards the Department of Landscape Architecture, despite the newly erected wing of the building. The new tract, despite the otherwise unavoidable spatial barrier, maintains the existing spatial relationships and the connection to the western part of the entire faculty area.
The central staircase provides central and efficient access to all floors and programmes. The compact organisation of the laboratories, which is not interrupted by an intermediate support structure, makes it possible to adapt the organisation of the technological part of the building to the current technical needs of the laboratory. The open floor plan with a perimeter structure without any intermediate supports is fully adaptable to changing technological and laboratory requirements.
The articulation of materiality into a solid frame and “soft” implants defines the visual address of the building, emphasising its structure and rhythm, as well as summarising the structure of the existing pavilion construction, where the principle of a uniform structural grid and infill defines its fundamental visual expression.

Authors: BLENKUŠ Matej; CIMPERMAN Katja; CVETREŽNIK Anja; KURNIK Andraž; KANDORFER Živa