The Gateway Building on the Sutton-Bonington campus of the University of Nottingham in Loughborough does more than just mark the entrance to the campus: its 3,100 m2 of campus is home to offices, laboratories, seminars and computer rooms. They are intended for in-house researchers, students, teachers, and administrators. Thanks to a well thought-out layout, the usable area reaches 80%.
Since the Sutton-Bonington campus trains veterinarians, agronomists and other agricultural specialists, the building there could not help but become exemplary "green". It is the largest straw block building in the country, and the straw for it was collected from university fields (that is, there was no CO2 emissions that are inevitable when transporting materials). The panels from which the walls are made are 14 m high; they consist of pressed straw and a timber frame, and the outside is covered with a thick layer of plaster. They were produced in a temporary workshop next to the construction site.
The Make building in central London is the exact opposite of the rural simplicity of Loughborough. This is the headquarters of the financial company UBS, the 5 Broadgate office complex. It is designed for 6,000 employees; four of its 12 floors are exchange trading rooms for 750 traders each.
The facades of the building will be sheathed with metal sheets; the combination of transparent and opaque surfaces, as well as the general "brutal" appearance should remind of machine aesthetics.
N. F.
