Linnaeusborg Centre for Life Sciences

'Linnaeusborg' is the new building for the Centre for Life Sciences of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the University of Groningen. The design forms a component of the WEST8 urban development plan, in which Zernike College will be transformed from a technocratic outpost of the university into an Arcadian campus in a leafy setting. The building is situated on the eastern periphery of the Zernike complex, directly adjacent to the moat and the nature area beyond. Housing for animals is situated on the north side, with greenhouses and test beds to the south.In relation to the extensive project as a whole, Linnaeusborg is a functionally determined building that, while it is large in scale, does not form an impenetrable mass. It opens up onto the campus, and is transparent and logical in its structure. The volume can be interpreted as a body that rises from the ground and partly vanishes in the perspective and the sloping ground level.