Summary
In Ghent, at the E17-E40 interchange, the architectural firm Storme Van Ranst designed a new building for the international bio-analytical company BARC/CRI. This project took exactly one year to design and one year to build.
In addition to laboratories, the building also contains offices, medica! archives and frozen storage and a logistics department where samples are received and dispatched.
The architects utilised the site’s prominent position to create an intriguing visual magnet: the building was given an expressly open character and an oblong, horizontal form, positioned so that it stretches alongside the motorway.
The activities in the offices and laboratory are clearly discernable through the glass facade. Behind this ‘open’ volume lies a second volume in brick. This ‘closed’ volume houses the technical rooms, individual offices, logistic centre and the heart of the building: the carefully guarded ‘database’ with blood and plasma samples.
The rectilinear, modern design, combined with high-quality materials such as glass, aluminium, concrete and brick, give the project durability, solidity and continuity, qualities the company pursues and wishes to radiate to the outside world.