Bernhard-Nocht-institute

Hamburg, Germany

Photo © Christian Richters

Architects: kister scheithauer gross

Location: Hamburg, Germany
Year: 2009

A striking new laboratory enlarges the renowned Tropical Institute of the architect Fritz Schuhmacher. On the pointed site west of the listed old building, the brick building crowns as a single building in the prominent neighbourhood on the Geestkante.

With its slightly inward sloping front wall the sculpture of the building does not lean on anything, but balances on its own. The wall and roof areas are clad with red-coloured bricks reminiscent of the surrounding buildings. Two roof areas sloping opposite to each other take up the dialogue with the expressive roof landscape of the old building. The new building remains just below the ridge line of the old building and allows the famous tower of the Tropical Institute to be widely seen.

The arrangement internally envisages a strict separation between research laboratories and the keeping of animals. Whilst the five upper storeys house the laboratories with the highest safety standards, the two underground levels accommodate experimental animal husbandry and breeding. The ground floor of the new building serves as the distribution level. No public entrance is foreseen here, access is in fact solely from the bridge to the old building, using the connection between the old and the new.