Every floor creates a level of openness and engagement
Make Architects for The University of Oxford
Contract value: Confidential
GIA: 7,449 m²
The BDI is home to myriad analysts busily examining medical data to find patterns and create cures. The peril is that they could feel isolated in their work, so the architect has arranged light, high-ceilinged open-plan floorplates around a large central atrium. The aim of the design is to give people a sense of belonging and to encourage interaction and fruitful inter-collaboration between disciplines.
With the deft handling of natural light and beautiful acoustic timber panels, every floor creates a level of openness and engagement, creating the feeling of one enormous multi-layered space. The BDI is the exact opposite of the dingy, cellular buildings of the past. It’s a delightful workplace – and naturally ventilated, the first of its kind in UK academia – so a truly innovative building as well. But it is also an exemplary building in the standard of working environment it achieves for the researchers within.