Designing a Research Centre

Abstract

Thornton Research Centre (TRC) is a major research site for Shell, housed at the base of the Wirral Peninsula about 20 miles south west of Liverpool. During 1993 it was decided that the existing rather extensive mixture of buildings should be refurbished, some pulled down, with new more coherent buildings to replace them being needed. This was to be part of a general plan to rejuvenate research activities in preparation for the 21st Century and the many emerging technological developments. It was decided that the planning of the whole new site and the design of the new research laboratories should benefit from environmental psychology input. I was approached before any architects were appointed, but after preliminary planning had taken place, to carry out a series of studies that would provide the strategic basis for the planning and design. The projects had to be completed over a period of a few months in a context that I knew, from previous experience, would change during our involvement. In fact one set of architects came and went during the project and a research centre in the South of England, at Sittingbourne, was brought into the plan and had to be included in the study