This project involves an 8,000 square foot addition to a Food Science Research Laboratory and renovations of existing laboratory spaces. The building is located on a high-security pharmaceutical research campus.
The completed facility functions as the technical center for the pharmaceutical company's food additive research and development division. Its program is centered around a teleconferencing facility that is needed to service clients, including presentations of prepared foods for tasting, and to coordinate satellite laboratories around the world.
A new entrance brings clients and employees through a foyer with splayed walls displaying company products. The inner lobby is centered on the foyer and rendered in the oval shape of the company's logo. Warm walls and floors are highlighted by neon lighting in the company's blue color.
At the center of the addition, and behind the inner lobby, is a large teleconferencing theater. It is entered through doors in the curving wall of the lobby on either side of the reception desk. The theater is configured as a rectangular conference room, but is designed to television studio standards. Its walls have acoustic panels in gray for excellent broadcast definition. The table is rendered in a warm color that reflects lighting back up into the faces of those around the table.
A roof monitor above the light grid controls natural light with deep overhangs and light-tight automated shades. Light levels in the room are balanced into four automatic presets: (l) normal meeting, (2) food presentation, (3) audio visual presentation, and (4) teleconferencing.
The conference table is splayed into a "stealth" shape so that participants may be visible without having to turn self-consciously towards the camera, which is centered in the wall between two five-foot television screens. Microphones are inset into the table, and lighting controls for the room are contained in a portable panel. A kitchen adjacent to the teleconferencing room supports food presentations. The teleconferencing theater opens onto a hall that is furnished with lounge chairs and telephones for the use of clients, and the facility is surrounded by a band of administrative offices.
Photography © Jeff Goldberg/Esto