The Medical Faculty of the University of Groningen wanted to erect a major building here to house its institute?s rooms and a main lecture hall with space for 450 students and with a large foyer, connected to the institute?s existing rooms. The new building would therefore have a ?jointing? function in urban and programmatic terms as well. Behind the glass revolving doors of the entrance area, facing the university plaza, an airy space organised into 3 storeys developed, whose side walls partially consisted of the external walls of the existing developments. From the foyer, a single staircase leads to the two upper storeys, which house all the institutional rooms for orthopaedics. Within its two double arms, the first floor encircles an inner courtyard with garden, laid out on the roof of the lecture hall.At the front of the foyer, a creatively designed concrete wall rises, the highest point of the giant lecture hall, half sunken into the earth. This wall, ?Chromosome Technology in Concrete Relief?, was designed in close collaboration with the artist Baukje Trenning. The lecture hall itself falls away towards a large white projection screen. Tables and chairs are combined to form a single large unit of furniture. They are sprayed red all over, a surface treatment technique borrowed from the motor industry.The double-curved aluminium ?skin? of the building, melted so as to flow, involved a special craft technique. Multiply curving surfaces are not unusual on aeroplanes and ships. For this reason, a shipbuilder was recruited to deal with the statics. All of the double-curved surfaces which are also visible from the inside were made as prefabricated parts. The overlapping of the fade panels provides natural inlets fresh air.
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