Academic

Durham University commissioned Studio Libeskind to create a new university building that will accommodate their expanding student body and staff, as well as house a new research facility for the study of fundamental physics. The new Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics provides seventy-two new offices for professors, lecturers, doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, support staff and visiting academics of the Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC)  the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy (CEA) and the Centre for Advanced Instrumentation (CfAI). At the core of the design’s concept is an emphasis on natural light and openness.  A spiral in plan, the Ogden Centre appears to…

The Graduate Student Centre for the London Metropolitan University is a striking addition to the bustling block on London’s Holloway Road. Composed of three intersecting volumes, clad with embossed stainless steel panels for a shining and ever-changing surface, the Graduate Center houses a lecture theater, seminar rooms, staff offices and a café for the university’s graduate students. The interiors are filled with natural light by way of large windows of geometrical cuts and slashes. The Centre serves not only as a facility to enhance the staff and student experience, but acts as a major gateway to the University on Holloway…

The new Forum at Leuphana University of Lüneburg, designed in collaboration with Daniel Libeskind, provides the campus with a landmark building that promotes the vision of innovation and excellence for the university. The building integrates the Research Center, the Student Center, the Seminar Center and the Auditorium into one single structure. This new configuration promotes cross disciplinary interaction and a dynamic learning environment for the students and faculty alike. Each of the functions are housed in four individually shaped and mutually interlinking volumes that form a major composite structure achieving the maximum efficiency in terms of usage, structure, energy consumption…

Entitled “Voices and its Echoes,” this major expansion to Bar-Ilan University gave visual form to the school’s essential quality: respect for the secular and the sacred. Apparent in the form of the building is the interrelation between the dynamics of knowledge and the unifying role of faith. The building is made up of an “open book” perched on top of two horizontal walls like the spine of a book. The book-like form holds a 1000-seat auditorium, which is acoustically suitable for musical performances and lectures. The auditorium lighting permeates through a labyrinth of Hebrew letters that denote an ancient constellation of…

An elegant, low-tech design placed at the service of high-tech invention. This nine-story crystalline building is designed to accommodate a range of flexible environments for research and experimentation. Each space, whether self-contained or open, is unique. The dramatic central stair spirals upward with irregular twists and curves creating unexpected gathering spaces. Asymmetrical windows cut into the walls of lecture halls, classrooms and computer labs allowing for natural light to fill even the inner-most rooms of the Center. Interactive spaces flow in and around the sound stages, recording studios, screening rooms, exhibit and performance spaces, multipurpose theater, and other areas. More…

Almost 13 years after Daniel Libeskind’s extension to the Jewish Museum Berlin opened to great acclaim in 2001, the museum unveiled its third collaboration with the architect, the Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin. The one-floor, 25,000-square-foot building is located on the historic site of the Blumengrossmarkt (flower market) across the street from the Jewish Museum Berlin. Entitled “In-Between Spaces,” the design links the building to the museum’s other structures and open spaces both thematically and structurally. Visitors enter through a downward thrusting cube that intersects with the main rectangular hall, suggestive of the original Kollegienhaus building and the Libeskind-designed…