A building as a social landscape
The molecular treasure chamber
Transparency and short distances
One milestone among many
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Building the future

In June the Novartis Campus in Basel saw the opening of the laboratory and office building Virchow 16, in which the Compound Management of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research with 1.5 million chemical compounds is also housed. This “molecular treasure chamber” serves researchers across the world as the basis for the development of drugs. With his concept based on sustainability and nature, Indian architect and urban planner Rahul Mehrotra has created a unique building to support this research work.

Text by Michael Mildner

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Entrance and side facade of Virchow 16.

arrow-rightA building as a social landscape
arrow-rightThe molecular treasure chamber
arrow-rightTransparency and short distances
arrow-rightOne milestone among many

This article was originally published in October 2015.
Published on 02/06/2020

The natural curtain comprising hanging and climbing plants gushing like a green waterfall over the entrance of Virchow 16 already stands out from afar. Nature also plays an important role in the interior of the building: An atrium with more than 20 plant species opens the building toward the sky, thereby creating the impression of standing in a sunlit forest. Parts of the walls and floors are covered with planks made of eucalyptus wood and many of the meeting rooms are decorated with earth-colored woven fabrics. Around 220 associates experience nature here in a manner that is unique throughout the campus.

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Treasure chamber in the basement: the compound bank.

A buil­ding as a so­ci­al land­scape

The fact that Indian architect Rahul Mehrotra concentrated so much on nature and sustainability in his work is also explained by the briefing he received for this project: Mehrotra was to build a “laboratory of the future” – something that caused him several sleepless nights, as he confessed at the opening of the building. After all, he added, there was no way he could predict the future. He therefore relied in his construction on values that can be expected still to endure in another 30 years.

“For us the idea of covering the facade with greenery and integrating herbaceous plants into the building can be linked to the stability of nature,” explains Mehrotra. “Everything is undergoing change, both our technology and our problems. The only real constants in life are nature and man and the relationship between man and nature.”

The sustainability within the building is ensured among other things by local and durable materials such as the Ticino granite tiles in the foyer or the innovative geo-storage facility that provides pleasant cooling during the summer and heat during the winter. Mehrotra mentions another aspect of his architectural concept he could not have done without: “In order to promote future innovations, the sociological dimension is decisive: how people interact, how they establish and maintain contact.”

For this reason the Indian architect and urban planner has designed a building that offers a large variety of venues for different kinds of collaboration – a kind of social landscape. The result is an interlocking building with four laboratory and five office floors where the different parts of the building are connected via the plant-filled atrium bathed in natural light and a large number of meeting zones.

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Substance sample for NIBR research.

The mole­cu­lar tre­a­su­re cham­ber

This new working environment has been welcomed by the research teams, as Sylvain Cottens, Global Head of the Center for Proteomic Chemistry (CPC) confirms. He was involved from the outset in the planning of Virchow 16: “My job was to incorporate the outlook and needs of the future users. The feedback received to date shows us that this objective has largely been achieved.”

Having said this, there are still some improvements to be made to the new building. For example, the noise level in the open common zones needs to be reduced by means of soundproofing measures.

It goes without saying for Cottens that the architecture on the campus is never an end in itself, no matter how fascinating it might be. What is built has to support the employees in their work, and here it surely does. “The main task of the associates in this building is to establish a connection between the insights that we have about an illness and the molecules in our substance library. As soon as we have found this connecting line, the molecules can be further developed by chemists in order to create a new drug.”

But before a new drug for the treatment of diseases can be developed, the NIBR researchers have to test thousands of molecules – sometimes even the entire set of 1.5 million substances stored in powdered form or as a solution in the basement of Virchow 16. Cottens describes it as follows: “The decisive factor for the selection of the test concepts is that the mechanisms of the illness should be reflected as accurately as possible in the plates. Where complex examinations are required, several thousand compounds are tested over two to three months. For more straightforward cases the entire substance library can be ‘screened’ in two weeks.”

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Robots prepare the test plates.

Trans­pa­ren­cy and short dis­tan­ces

Through the windows of the spacious entrance foyer we can see associates sending chemical compounds from the substance library to scientists throughout the world or preparing for test runs in their own building.

This transparency defining the true character of the building is a central aspect of the architectural concept. “We have nothing to hide,” says Sylvain Cottens. “On the contrary, we are proud of the work carried out here in the building and happy for visitors to see it.”

The benefits for collaboration offered by Rahul Mehrotra’s building design are best described by taking a specific example: One of the research teams has set itself the goal of employing cellular mechanisms for the degradation of carcinogenic proteins. The potential of this approach would be to open up a fundamentally new kind of access to cancer therapy, as previous approaches have merely aimed at inhibiting the function of these carcinogenic proteins.

The research group consists of representatives of various units working in different buildings: Novartis Oncology (Klybeck), Friedrich Miescher Institute (Rosental), Global Discovery Chemistry (GDC, Vir-chow 16) and the Center for Proteomic Chemistry (CPC, Virchow 16). Instead of being physically separated by function as was the practice at the previous location with its 10 different floors, the team members of CPC and GDC now sit at neighboring desks. This means that experts in biological tests, structural biology and medicinal chemistry can discuss questions or new results directly with one another without having to wait until the next project meeting.

The same principle applies to laboratory associates who participate in this research project in the open-space laboratories of Virchow 16. This enables insights gained, for instance, during the purification, crystallization or testing of proteins to be discussed quickly and easily. Ideas are also more frequently exchanged than was previously the case in the many recreation zones where associates meet spontaneously.

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Sylvain Cottens (center) during a team meeting.

One mi­les­to­ne among many

However, the opening of Virchow 16 in June 2015 is just one of many milestones on the road to establishing a global network of new laboratory buildings in line with the NIBR objective.

All these buildings – be they in Switzerland, China or the US – have been constructed in accordance with the concept of open and innovative laboratory design and equipped with the latest technology in order to provide the multidisciplinary scientific teams here with an ideal environment for their work.

Sylvain Cottens and his colleagues are looking forward to the future with confidence and are pleased with the environment that Rahul Mehrotra has created through his individual building design. Even the name of the new building appears to have an inspiring impact on their work, adds Cottens: “We have recently discovered a potential drug for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia that is currently undergoing clinical development. This disease was first described 170 years ago by the German physician and scientist Rudolph Virchow, after whom our building is named.”

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