The new Nucleus building of BaseClear has been nominated for the RAP architecture prize, a bi-annual prize that is awarded by the Rijnlands Architecture Platform (RAP). The building is one of the nine finalists that have been selected from a longlist of twenty-four newly built or restored buildings within the Leiden region.
The Nucleus building has been designed by Popma & Ter Steege. With their design, the architects have created an open and collaborative environment to promote knowledge transfer. There are several open meeting spaces where employees from different departments and disciplines can meet and connect with each other. The building also contains a special lecture room for both internal and external meetings and lectures. The laboratories are located on the second floor of the building and are a completely restricted area for safety and confidentiality reasons. Within this area, the laboratories are structured optimally for the current working processes, but also have the flexibility to be restructured to adapt to future developments.
CEO Bas Reichert tells: “We are very proud of this nomination. Although we are a relatively small company, we can compete with large organizations such as Naturalis. This design fits perfectly with our core values. We want to collaborate with our customers, partners and spin-off companies in an open atmosphere and create an environment in which both our employees and our customers enjoy what they are doing. In our new lecture room, we have already organized several successful experts meetings, where visitors could also sit down for lunch and get a tour through our lab. We often hear from them that they really enjoy the place and appreciate how well everything is organized.”
“The sustainability of the Nucleus building is also in line with our corporate vision” Reichert continues. The building has a BREAAM sustainability label of ‘Excellent’ due to, for example, the 290 square meters of solar panels, the compact building volume, the efficient and high-frequency lighting and the water-saving sanitary appliances. In addition, the building is connected to the thermal storage system (WKO) of the Biopartner foundation, which has an overcapacity for this.
Do you agree that the Nucleus building deserves to win this architecture prize? If so, please vote for our building on rapleiden.nl. The festive presentation of both the jury and the public prize will take place on Wednesday evening, 9 October 2019 in Scheltema (Leiden).