The HPL was built by the ETH Zurich in 2005-2012 to facilitate Life Sciences and cross-discipline medical research on Campus Hönggerberg. The building offers approximately 10,000 square meters of usable area, accommodating 400 lab and non-lab workplaces. It comprises six lab floors above ground and three underground levels, housing facilities such as a vivarium, storage areas, and technical floors.

The floors are elongated rectangle, with circulation and a core block in the middle, and tracts of lab space to the east and offices to the west of the cores. Unlike earlier ETH lab designs, which were linear with a straight corridor between lab and office spaces, the HPL employs an offset configuration. Circulation corridors zigzag around the stair and lift cores and support lab blocks, with vertical shafts integrated into the support lab blocks’ layout. Circulation corridors merge to form a wider collaborative area towards the west side of the building. 

The labs are totally glazed towards the corridor and have a glazed exterior facade, rendering them very well-lit, attractive spaces. Eastern exposure insures relatively low sun heat loads in the labs. Underground levels, apart from animal facilities, are lit through sunken courts. The architecture of the high-value building conveys a very precise, crisp image, with dark reflective facades and brightly lit white and glass interiors.

A collaboration zone for informal exchanges is located between the lab and office tracts. The corridor becomes wider and opens towards generous outdoor loggias. A conceptually good intention, the collaborative space as it was built now seems incomplete.  Open and transient, the wide corridor does not induce gatherings. The large outdoor loggias are rarely used.

Two enclosed egress stairs in the cores serve as connections between labs and offices on different levels, although users have expressed a desire for a more open vertical connection between lab floors in the common area.

Functionally, the lab and office tracts are fixed and cannot be converted into one another if needed.

Overhead systems distribution under the ceiling is open, with suspended acoustical panels only in circulation corridors. Lab workplaces are served with vertical media columns suspended from the ceiling grid.

The building comprises three underground levels housing a vivarium, storage, and technical rooms, along with six lab levels above grade. Partial daylighting is provided to the underground levels through sunken courts. Technical rooms below grade are supplemented by a sizable vent room integrated into the upper lab floor.

The floor-to-floor height is 4.0 meters, with a clear height inside the labs of 2.8 meters to the underside of the installation grid.

The building features a cast concrete structure with columns and flat slabs, incorporating two service cores and two load-bearing walls in lateral and cross-directions. The structural module of 7.0 meters permits a spacious lab layout, accommodating a double 3.4-meter clear width.

Ten vertical risers serve two labs each, running along the middle of the floor plate. These risers are integrated into the fitout of the service labs. Additionally, stair and lift cores contain extra shaft space, accommodating an additional lift if needed.

The lab modules, as well as office modules, are designed to be interconnected to create larger units. Internally, labs are linked by an aisle between the lab proper and write-up zones. Two labs at each end of the floor plate are solely accessible through support labs or via the write-up aisle. Following the lab side's layout, the offices are also structured on a 7.0-meter structural module, resulting in somewhat excessively wide single offices (3.5 meters).

Typologically, HPL is a variation of the scheme of its much larger predecessor, the lab building HCI (link), completed on Campus about 15 years prior. It is an elongated rectangle with tracts of lab proper, support lab, corridor, and office space. Particular to the HPL parti is the zigzagged corridor splitting lab support zone into three offset blocks. Dedicated services’ shafts are distributed along the labs, analog HCI, with additional riser space in the cores. Circulation space with "integrated" collaboration zones is somewhat too generous to serve only as circulation. At the same time, it is not optimally laid out to induce collaboration.

HPL stands out as a model educational lab building, featuring a well-defined plan diagram, efficient vertical stacking, and luminous, transparent lab spaces with exposed service distribution and views of surrounding greenery.

In an effort to enhance upon the HCI building's layout, HPL prioritized collaborative spaces. These areas were integrated into widened corridors and outdoor loggias, intended for spontaneous meetings and interactions. However, these collaboration spaces were not effectively separated from circulation areas, limiting their usability. Additionally, the outdoor loggias are seldom utilized for group events, offering minimal contribution to scientific exchange.

The layout of the office tract aligns with the grid dimension of the labs, resulting in overly wide single offices at 3.5 meters, exceeding even the generous US standard of 10 feet (3 meters). Furthermore, the floor-to-floor height on the office side, driven by lab height requirements, is excessive. To address sound issues, suspended acoustical ceiling panels were installed in some offices, reducing the effective office height to a more practical 2.7 meters but sacrificing nearly a meter of floor height above the ceiling on each floor.

Project 2005-08, Construction 2008-2012

Total area (SIA GF) 21'920 m2, useable (SIA HNF) 10'242 m2. Building volume 94'365 m3.

55m2 of total or 25m2 of useable area per workstation

Architect: Burckhardt+Partner