Info & Images: Courtesy Foster+Partners
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New research and
development centre for Hankook Tire breaks ground in Korea…
A ground-breaking ceremony
has been held for the Hankook Technodome, a state-of-the-art new research and
development facility for one of the world’s leading tyre manufacturers. The new
centre is located in Daejeon, at the heart of Asia’s ‘silicon valley’, and will
provide an inspirational place to work, with light filled offices,
state-of-the-art laboratories and dynamic social spaces to nurture a culture of
openness and innovation.
The design of the new
centre is rooted in analysis of the organization. Rather than a conventional
arrangement of offices above double-height testing areas, the building is
arranged as five fingers, with parallel office and industrial units – this
dynamic, integrated arrangement is highly flexible and promotes visual
connections and interaction between the offices, laboratories and different divisions.
Breaks between each finger draw daylight into the heart of the floor plate.
The research spaces extend
from a top-lit central spine, which runs from the restaurant in the south to
the accommodation for staff in the north. Glazed oval meeting pods are
suspended above the full-height space, which acts as a light well, drawing
daylight through the building and into the staff social spaces below. The
circulation strategy creates a natural divide between public areas and more
sensitive product development zones – visitors will be able to tour the centre
and see the large-scale testing machinery in use.
The different functions are
unified beneath a wide silver roof canopy, incorporating louvres for shade,
which appears to float over the building. The centre targets LEED ‘gold’ and
integrates a number of sustainable design strategies, for example waste heat
from the research and development centre is used to heat the residential
accommodation, and a lake at the southern entrance to the site harvests rainwater
for use in cooling.
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