These Are the Most Beautiful Science Labs in the World

Top photo: ENERGY.GOV

Who said that laboratories, research centers and other science institutions have to be boring places? Believe me, architects are doing their bests when it comes to designing the headquarters of such facilities. The following 22 images prove that I am right.

Technical Area 3 of Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is one of the largest multidisciplinary science and technology institutions in the world.  Photo: LANL

The Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois Photo: John Hill, Tigerhill Studio/Argonne National Laboratory

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Multiprogram Research Facility (right), and the Visitor Center (left), in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  Photo: ORNL

The Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT), Sandia Labs, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Photo: Randy Montoya/Sandia Labs

Technology & Engineering Development Facility, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, located in Newport News, Virginia. Photo: Jefferson Lab

The New Interdisciplinary Science Building for Energy Research at Brookhaven Lab, in Upton, New York. Photo: BNL

The Thomas J. Watson Research Center, the headquarters for IBM Research, in Yorktown Heights, New York. Photo: Simon Greig

The European Southern Observatory's headquarters in Garching, Germany. Photo: E. Graf/ESO

They conduct basic research in the fields of networks and distributed systems, scientific computing, and software engineering in the Simula Research Laboratory, Fornebu, Norway. Photo: Peter

i.lab, the new research and development center for Italcementi in Bergamo, Italy. Photo: Italcementi

Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, at University of Glasgow. Photo: The Gist

Wilson Hall, the central laboratory building of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois. Photo: Reidar Hahn/Fermilab

The Mechatronics Building in the Science Park of the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) Linz, Austria. Photo: JKU

The Science Learning Center at the University of Texas, Dallas. The tile exterior represents two scientific patterns: atomic emission spectra of gases, and human DNA. Photo: Datum Gojer Engineers

Natural Science Engineering and Research Laboratory (NSERL) at the University of Texas, Dallas. The overlapping colorful anodized stainless steel shingles cover 15 percent of the building's surface. Photo: Datum Gojer Engineers

The Health Sciences Education Building at University of Arizona in Phoenix was inspired by the canyon formations found throughout the state. Photo: University of Arizona

The Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England. Photo: MRC-LMB

The Atlas Building of Wageningen University and Research Center, is an environmental research complex in Wageningen, the Netherlands. Photo: Rico

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Stata Center is a home for computer, information, and intelligence science, in Cambridge, MA.  Photo: Bizuayehu Tesfaye/AP

The Bharati Antarctic research station, India's third Antarctic research facility. Photo: COMNAP

ALBA is a synchrotron radiation laboratory in Cerdanyola del Vallès, Catalonia, Spain. Photo: Alba-Cells

The Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), Shanghai, People's Republic of China. Photo: SSRF

COMMENTS

I really think that Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon should also be in this list'

You can't even begin to have this conversation without first mentioning The Salk Institute.

The interior at FermiLab is awesome.

NCAR Boulder, CO

Came here to post this, the building is cool, and the backdrop is amazing.

I like these pictures of the mermaid building from the side a lot as well.

No love for the UCSB Bioengineering building?

It should get bonus points since it has retina scanners to access some of the labs.

The new UMass Amherst Life Sciences Laboratory is a pretty nice looking building - all glassy and sinuous...

My ever so lame submission is the IMPACT research center in Kuala Lumpur. Is it beautiful? Well, OK, maybe the beauty is all inside.

IMPACT is the acronym for:

'International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats'

My alma mater in Brno, Czech Republic. This is new campus where Faculty of Science reside. I really liked it there even if I didn´t have any classes in those buildings, simply because it was new and amazing, and because they had good cafeteria.

Red Bull HQ ;-)

The pic here doesn't really capture it but the Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Laboratory is pretty gorgeous...

How could you possibly miss the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics?

Stephen Hawking is the Distinguished Research Chair here.

Weizmann Institute Rehovot, Israel

The SUNY Upstate Institute for Human Performance in Syracuse, NY. I drive by it almost every day and still get weirded out by the changing color panels.

University of Westminster, London. A 1960's block of asbestos and awkward design

This one could be on the list - Estação Ciência - In João Pessoa, in northeast Brazil.

Call me old fashioned, but the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in Cold Spring Harbor, NY (y'know, where they discovered DNA?) are still beautiful in my book:

The Stata Center? Ugh, no. It's a hideously ugly building with a bunch of engineering flaws (leaks, cracks, plumbing problems) that MIT sued that hack Gehry over, and difficult to use interior spaces (Gehry's stupid exterior shapes impose themselves awkwardly on the interior spaces, you know,where actual work is supposed to be done)..

Millennium Science Complex and Materials Research Institute at Penn State. The design of the cantilever actually helps shield ultra-sensitive instruments from vibrations.

Sandia Labs' Joint Computational Engineering Lab (JCEL) is also worth a gander.

University of Akron's Polymer Research Lab isn't bad either...

Not a hard science, but Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London.

CERN Headquarters! :-)

Trinity Biomedical Science Institute, Dublin

I would also suggest Italy/INFN's Gran Sasso National Labs for the list. This picture doesn't even do it justice:

Weird, I saw this on a Norwegian film last night; it was supposed to be a police station, and I thought it was beautiful. It was in winter and the surrounding environment was completely white.

You forgot Apple's giant promo box ;) so gorgeous, all it lacks is dad sneakers and a mock turtleneck!

It may not be the prettiest thing in the world, but I've always liked the Engineering Research Building at UW-Madison. I've been told the appearance is supposed to resemble an old IBM punch card.

https://fpm-www1.fpm.wisc.edu/smomap/buildin...

Science Hall at UW-Madison, while old fashioned, has always been a beautiful building to me. http://www.geography.wisc.edu/history/

It's not a lab any longer, but the former Bell Labs building, designed by Eero Saarinen, is worth mentioning here as well.

Fraunhofer Institute of Industrial Engineering, Stuttgart

Institute for Space Systems, Stuttgart. No picture can do justice to this building's design.

Bharati Antactic Station for the Win.

Feast your eyes on this gem of northern architecture! Also pay attention to the yellow boxes, on the right, they're like colorful matchboxes! University of Oulu, Finland.

Also check out Sandia Labs' National Solar Thermal Test Facility:

Not a real topic unless it includes Salk Institute and Champalimaud Center for the Unknown... Sorry!

Translational Research Institute

Pleasure. It's in Brisbane, Australia and it's run by Ian Frazer who invented the cervical cancer vaccine. It's very pretty and gets extra points for being shiny - and it's all for science!

Barcelona Biomedic Research Park (PRBB). Best location ever: in front of the Barceloneta beach.

European Synchrotron Research Facility in Grenoble, France. Perfectly circular and located between two legs of a river. French Alps around it. Beautiful place!

Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research at the University of Toronto

not visible in the previous picture is the bamboo atrium (it's blocked by the building next door)

Love the building, it looks like and electrophoresis gel. And the research lab next door was where they filmed Resident Evil 3.

I didn't know that! Those are the pods in the Pharmacy building!

And one more photo, the DNA staircase.

Merck Sharp & Dhome in White House, NJ, USA I used to work for these guys.

Vontz Center for Molecular Studies at the University of Cincinnati.

The Semmelweis University, Medical School, and College Lab:

The Synchrotron Labs are fun as we get to cycle around the large perimeters.

You could have mentioned Advanced Light Source in Berkeley where the first Hulk was filmed.

And the National Ignition Facility at Livermore where nu-Trek warp core was located.

.

NIF:

ALS:

That's because they're smaller on the outside...

(And besides, beautiful to engineers.)

Totally agree, they are wondrous inside, and I am gonna include them in my next collection of awesome lab interiors.

The Australian Science Academy in Canberra, plus a shot of it lit up at night. Local nickname is 'The Martian Embassy'.

I love this! We have a very similar building in Budapest:

The Training Reactor of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.

I'm partial, but feel the list should at least include a mention of NREL's ESIF (Energy Systems Integration Facility). Also voted as Lab of the Year in 2014.

There are several cool buildings on the NREL campus.

Amazing to see so many cool laboratories from around the world. Great post!

Always wondered about this "coincidence."

Um... The Mclaren Technology Centre?

This one is in central West Virginia. I think it's kinda nice looking.

Brandeis University, Waltham, MA

Source: http://14ilcatbrownsessionone.blogspot.com/2014/05/brande...

SAHMRI, Adelaide, Australia.

This looks even better at night:

Yes, I like this old night shot very much:

Hi Attila, great work these are all beautiful! May I add one more, from sunny Barcelona. It's the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB http://www.prbb.org/), a public interdisciplinary building with more than 1,500 people, where research takes place in many areas of medicine and biology. Located nicely in front of the beach :)

I can send you some more pictures if you would like to add them to the post? Or you can see some images here:

Pinterest: http://bit.ly/1bteaUs

Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1bte13e

Instagram: http://bit.ly/1ETbtoO

I'm assuming that this list is only for purely academic institutions/laboratories then. Because, if not, then the McLaren Technology Centre should be a shoe in for a list like this.

While admittedly most of the work in there goes toward either their racing efforts or their road cars - that still involves alot of cutting edge research and development in the fields of aerodynamics and advanced materials/composites.

HHMI Janelia http://janelia.org

We have one of those wonderful building too, and the structure is completely out of wood. And a new building very similar to the Base of endor is being build in the near woods.

SLS in Villgen Sitzerland

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

ORIGINAL: Gizmodo