Prototypical Facility for Vaccine Research

In 1997, the United Nations Development Program, with the South Korean government and a large Korean university, joined forces to develop the International Vaccine Institute focused on research, training and technical assistance for vaccines needed to prevent childhood epidemics in developing countries. The resulting vaccine research facility was the largest of its type in the world. The new building contains viral and bacterial research laboratories, faculty and administrative offices, a conference center, library and a pilot plant for prototype vaccine production and demonstration.

Special Constraints
This building incurred special constraints as a project in part developed by the United Nations. Security, for example, was of utmost importance and became a design factor at the planning and siting level as well as at the detail level, yet the building was also to remain highly public. The intense security concerns are balanced against the desire to build an open and inviting building. The large-scale public spaces and ample corridors are intended to promote the general use and interaction of the people within the spaces. Special measures were taken to ensure the high-level security required for the research elements within the building.

Solution
The Institute is carefully sited to create a strong formal relationship with its mountainous landscape, while reinforcing a site axis through to Kwanak Mountain behind it. The building’s form is fractured along an existing ancient footpath that extends through the site to a temple on top of the mountain, allowing hikers and pilgrims clear passage to the top. This fractured form expresses the clear functional divisions within the facility, separating administrative, research and production activities. Massing is articulated as three layers and volumes that can be read as one building or several. In the tradition of Korean landscape design, an intricate system of site walls, terraces and gardens link these forms, cradling the mountainous landscape and blurring the line between building and nature.

The building’s three massing layers each house diverse contents: the entrance pavilion holds the public reception lobby, a two-story library, international conference center, and offices/apartments for visiting faculty; the research lab block includes labs and offices for resident faculty; a third block holds the pilot production plant. Below the terrace that links the forms are an animal facility, parking garage and a secure building services area.

Generous public spaces enhance the scientific culture of the institute. Horizontal and vertical openness foster a communal spirit centered on the atrium and also provide natural light to labs and offices. Highly public areas, such as the conference center and library, are entered from the ground floor, while highly restricted research areas float above the main floor; these two distinct areas are visually connected yet secure. The T-shaped atrium and lobby spaces are bi-directional, oriented both east-west and north-south, and are linked with a dramatic sloping skylight over the entire expanse and visually connected to the landscape across both axes.

Photography: © Seung Hoon Yum