Richard Doll Building, Oxford, The

The Richard Doll Building at Oxford University brings together the University's Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU), the Epidemiological Studies Unit, the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit and the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, all in one location. It is envisioned that, through extended cooperation and joint projects between these research groups under one roof, fresh light will be cast on the causes, prevention and treatment of cancers, heart attacks, strokes and other significant diseases.

The building itself is named in honour of Sir Richard Doll, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, whose outstanding achievements included the assembly of one of the world's foremost medical schools, with an expertise in population-based studies of disease. Most famously, in 1950, he discovered the now unquestioned link between smoking and lung cancer. Regrettably, Sir Richard died, aged 92, in July 2005 and was unable to see the opening of the new facility.

Design considerations

Funded by the Joint Infrastructure Fund (JIF). the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK. the Wolfson Foundation and Oxford University, the building consists of four, 4-storey reinforced concrete framed structures in the shape of a hand, consisting of a 'palm' (laboratory accommodation) and three 'fingers' (office accommodation) linked together by solid reinforced concrete slab 'bridges' at each floor level and a series of full-height atria at roof level. Foundations consist of traditional reinforced concrete pile caps supported on helical displacement piles.

At project conception stage, the available budget of £!5m was insufficient to complete the building in its planned form. Since CTSU had a deadline to vacate its existing premises, the possibility of not completing at least part of the building to the original programme was not an option. With this in mind, the third 'finger', its associated atrium and some areas of 'fit out' were omitted from the scheme. As the scheme approached the programmed start on site date, further funds became available to increase the budget from £15m to £23m. This was sufficient to accommodate construction of the third 'finger' and its associated atrium, and the design team were instructed to incorporate these changes into the scheme accordingly. These revised designs were completed in order for the piles to the third finger and its associated atria to be installed within the main piling contract.

External walls consist of a combination of 225mmthick solid reinforced concrete shear walls and precast concrete infill panels fitted within the edge columns and beams of the in-situ concrete frames. The primary external finish to the building consists of a white, insulated reinforced render system applied directly to the in-situ and precast concrete walls via a layer of insulation.

The atrium roofs consist of a series of north lights to provide daylight to the offices adjoining the atria. Internal wall finishes are of painted plasterboard or exposed in-situ concrete, with some areas of timber veneer in the atrias. The external façades of the atria are clad using full-height curtain walling systems supported off structural steel frameworks.

The 'palm' block provides space for a number of different uses including general office areas, plant rooms, meeting rooms, libraries and break-out space. However, the primary intended use of this block was as laboratory space. In this respect, it was planned to incorporate suspended ceilings into the sections of this block designated for use as laboratories.

Flat slab solution

Due to restrictions on the floor-to-floor height, and to incorporate the required ceiling void, a 300mm-thick flat slab solution was adopted to the palm block. The concrete structure was subsequently framed out on a 6 x 7.2m grid to suit laboratory benching and space requirements. To coordinate with the main 7.2m grid, while also maintaining column thicknesses within the 225mm adopted for the perimeter walls, a perimeter column spacing of 3.6m was used.

In contrast with conventional open-plan office layouts, for the finger blocks, the design brief called for cellular office accommodation that would typically house six workers per room. To fully exploit the passive heating and cooling properties of the structure, the design team proposed the use of 6m long, 500mm deep exposed concrete coffered slabs, at 1.2m centres spanning between 500mmdeep perimeter and central spine beams. Due to the lack of a ceiling void, these areas were serviced by integrating raised floors into the building design at all levels. As with the palm block, the longer blocks were framed out on a 6 × 7.2m grid with perimeter columns at 3.6m centres.

Colour and finish

The architect's original aspiration was to use white concrete tor the exposed soffits of the finger blocks. However, the cost of this was prohibitive so other suitable alternatives (other than painting the concrete) were investigated. These investigations concluded that using a concrete with a high cement replacement content (i.e. ground-granulated blastfurnace slag (ggbs)) would result in a concrete shade with the desired colour tone. Accordingly, White Young Green specified that the cemencggbs ratio for all concrete should be 30:70. The 'as built" construction has resulted in a colour shade in line with the original aspiration.