A building that feels good: Wellcome Trust, Gibbs Building

In this exclusive extract from Buildings That Feel Good by Ziona Strelitz, we study some of the notable aspects of the Wellcome Trust's Gibbs Building.

The Wellcome Trust's Gibbs Building shows successful engagement with the contrasting urban London conditions on its busy Euston Road frontage and opposing quiet Bloomsbury elevation. A fine commissioned sculpture positioned close to the Gower Street elevation offers viewing interest to building users and passers-by. The atrium is unusually comfortable and uplifting – as a ground-floor street, as volumetric space, and in relation to both the adjacent office space as one rises up the building and the roof. The atrium elevations demonstrate a useful alternation of permeability and enclosure, and a refined use of materials and palette.

Spatial quality

Westward view along the atrium base, showing the café, informal seating and meeting areas, surrounded by circulation space and benefiting from fine quality of light. Photo: ZZA Responsive User Environments

The atrium, or internal street, extends to the Gower Place elevation. This beautiful space is the heart of the building. Accommodating an array of informal settings and large Ficus Benjamina growing in limestone planters, it is also the route to the ground-floor conference seminar rooms, the office areas on the floors above, and the top floor restaurant with its southward roofscape views.

The varied treatment on the atrium edges, as one looks up or down this volume, is rich in its mix of permeability and enclosure relative to the office areas behind it. The cores are fully clad in maple, creating two solid panels up the elevation's full height. From the first to the fourth floors, all the office space is open to the atrium, although users can choose to draw down white fabric blinds at the open edge of the north block. Floors five to seven of the north block have a balustrade at the atrium edge, with sliding doors that people in the office areas can open or close. This variation reflects the change in thermal conditions as one rises up the building, given that the atrium is the return path for warm air. For this reason, the eighth floor is sealed with fixed panels.

The atrium is simultaneously a distinct space and also the centre of the building that works and feels like a single place.

Rich benefits from the artwork

Upward view of Thomas Heatherwick's sculpture, Bleigiessen, at the atrium edge facing Gower Street. Photo: ZZA Responsive User Environments

The installation f Thomas Heatherwick's sculpture at the western end of the atrium is a masterstroke. Constructed on site, this specially commissioned work, Bleigiessen, comprises 150,000 glass spheres suspended by wire from the sixth floor. Its scale and position poise it to enrich the experience of building users – who see it in a dynamic way as they move around this part of the building – as well as attracting the interest of people outside the building, who can enjoy its shimmering luminance through the glazed elevation.

Natural light

Effective use of the special spatial opportunity on the fifth floor of the south block: restaurant harnessing the excellent view, with blinds and fritting to modulate the light. Photo: ZZA Responsive User Environments

High reliance on daylighting – combined with glare reduction through the louvers, ceramic glass fritting on all the windows, solar control glass and blinds on the atrium roof – results in reduced use of artificial lighting. A comprehensive strategy for efficient lighting further reduces the energy load.

The internal street is suffused with natural light that enters through the curved glass roof that encloses the restaurant atop the five-storey block. Natural light also penetrates through the fully glazed west and south elevations, and the east elevation above the fifth-floor level.

The quality of light is extremely well modulated by the fritting and perforated white fabric blinds on the glazed panels of the roof. The fritting provides a range of opacity, graduated up to 40 percent. The blinds are controlled by the building management system..

Find out more

Buildings That Feel Good by Ziona Strelitz takes a look at the question "what makes a building good?" This central challenge facing architects and clients can only be answered by looking at what works well for those who know the buildings most intimately – the building's users.

Richly illustrated in colour, this refreshingly original book is packed with case studies of recent buildings that feel good. This ineffable quality is architecture's Holy Grail. It is rooted in the physical but mediated by human experience, and may only be judged after the building has been 'lived in' and stood the test of time. The trick is to identify the relevant characteristics that will inform new buildings before they are built.

Written by a highly respected briefing and design evaluation expert who specialises in optimising the experience of building users, Buildings that feel good distils a set of hard-won lessons synthesised from years of empirical research. It argues that a powerful key to designing good buildings is to decipher consistent principles from users' positive experience of existing buildings. The case studies include many recent highly-rated projects that cover a wide range of building types – offices, retail, industrial, infrastructure, sport and education. The lessons extracted are universal and provide valuable generic insights into the critically important briefing process.

Eclectic, thought-provoking and distinctive in articulating propositions for successful design, Buildings that feel good offers a design action agenda aimed at clients, architects, engineers, interior designers, construction professionals, students and indeed anyone interested in the nature of spaces that are both effective and cherished.

To order a copy of this book, please visit RIBA Bookshops.

Copyright RIBA Publishing June 2008

Additional publications

Also available to buy now from RIBA Bookshops:

Transforming Cities: Revival in the Square

Re-Readings: Interior architecture and the design principles of remodelling existing buildings

Related NBS information:

Articles:

• Ryder and Yates: Twentieth Century Architects
• Peter Eisenman: What makes great architecture?

Selected links:

• 20th century architecture
• Contemporary architecture

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