mcgaugh-hall-university-of-california: McGaugh Hall, University of California, Biological Sciences, Irvine California, USA
Designed 1986 with Francisco Kripacz
The challenge in designing the biological Sciences Building was to accommodate a rather large program, 220,000 square feet, onto a difficult, yet important site. The shape of the site, the relationships to the existing buildings and the curving Ring Mall and Central Park, are all significant constraints on the design. The building height has been kept low in proportion with its neighbours and steps higher to the south in accordance with the existing site slope.
The building form has been derived in large part from the most efficient grouping of laboratory planning modules, both from a preferred adjacency aspect as well as limitations on the length of the mechanical system runs. Office and conference space must be centrally located and convenient to laboratories on each floor.
A somewhat limited budget resulted in a straightforward expression of the building’s function as a laboratory. A simple curtain wall admits generous light into the laboratory with alternating vertical bands of clear and translucent glass held by aluminum mullions. The office spaces have a limestone cladding to differentiate it from the laboratories.
Photo by Richard JW Wright
