Odgen Center for Fundamental Physics at Durham University | Studio Daniel Libeskind

Odgen Center for Fundamental Physics at Durham University

Durham University commissioned Studio Libeskind to create a new university building to accommodate their expanding student body and staff, as well as to house a new research facility for the study of fundamental physics. The Ogden Center will provide eighty new offices for professors, lecturers, doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, support staff and visiting academics of the Institute for Computational Cosmology and the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology. It will include interaction space, a research outreach area, and meeting rooms.

Light and openness are at the core of the design for the Ogden Center. A spiral in a plan, the Centre appears to be two stacked forms clad in a larch rain screen with bands of windows and terraces cutting across the facades.

The program called for a series of small work spaces for research. Instead of creating dark cubicles, the design team placed all the offices in a ring, so each space has a window with natural light with a frosted glass door to create a luminous and open program throughout. Generous roof terraces create communal areas to relax and enjoy the fresh air. Skylights marshal light into the central atrium and flexible meeting areas.

With sustainability at the heart of its design, care has been taken to minimize environmental impacts and ongoing running costs, and to ensure excellent value for money. The Design Team worked to deliver a state of the art and fully accessible facility, with robust materials and future-proofed capacity in IT infrastructure. At the same time the construction provided for flexibility in its internal planning and it is expected to receive a status of BREEAM Excellent standard of sustainability.

Project Info
Architects: Studio Daniel Libeskind
Location: Durham, United States
Structural Engineer: ARUP
Landscape Architect: Jane Findlay
Cost and Site supervision: Summers Inman
Year: 2017
Type: Educational
Photographs: Hufton + Crow Photography, Courtesy of  Studio Daniel Libeskind