International Centre for Life, Newcastle
1996 - 1999

The concept for the International Centre for Life (ICL) emerged out of Newcastle University's pre-eminence in the field of genetic research. The £60m Landmark Millennium scheme combines a new block for the university's genetics department; a Bioscience Centre with office/laboratory space for private sector bio-technology companies; a visitor attraction designed to inform the public about genetics and the story of DNA; and Times Square, Newcastle's first new public square for over a century. Having already created the masterplan for Newcastle's East Quayside, Terry Farrell and Partners, prepared a series of urban design studies for the area around Newcastle Central Station. The creation of these 'urban villages', led to a competition in 1996, which TFP won. The Bioscience Centre opened in 1998, at the same time as TFP received the brief for the other components of the scheme – in this sense the practice set the agenda for the project before knowing the full brief.

ICL eschews any single design approach. From the beginning, the curved layout of the complex appeared to resemble an embryo. An image that recalled the early stages of biological growth seemed a fitting motif for a 'centre for life' and for the regeneration of a derelict urban quarter. Planned around a robust and flexible collage of buildings, the focus of attention at the heart of the scheme is the pedestrianised Times Square.

Architecturally, the 'face' of the masterplan is the freeform pre-patinated copper roof of the LIFE Interactive World exhibition gallery. The roof shape derives from the structure and complex geometries of a leaf – a fitting motif for a scheme celebrating life itself. Its structural system results in a constantly changing sectional form that is one of the most complex geometrical roof shapes yet created in timber and steel. The 'black box' component of LIFE Interactive World contains multi-media displays and is designed out of profile metal with servicing on its flat roof: as it faces the railway, its box-like industrial aesthetic is fitting. The 'ski slope' links the Institute of Human Genetics to the single-storey visitor attraction 'black box', setting in motion a spiral that cascades down to the lowest curve of the visitor attraction. Contrasting with the exuberance of the visitor attraction, the Bioscience Centre is an economic, functional building faced in sandstone and, on the street elevation, render and glass blocks.

The architectural design of the complex responds to its context, while creating sufficient coherence and identity to establish a new quarter. ICL is a landmark urban regeneration project that celebrates and revives elements of Newcastle's past. The architecture and urban planning actively promotes renewal, evolution and development, thereby mirroring the life-giving function of the site.