Neural Architects: The Sainsbury Wellcome Centre from Idea to Reality (Hardback)

Neural Architects documents a unique collaboration between a leading architectural practice, Ian Ritchie Architects Ltd, and a community of scientists seeking to understand how we think, feel, understand and remember. The outcome of this collaboration is an outstanding laboratory for the 21st century, the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre at University College London. This book celebrates the opening of the building in 2016.

Ian Ritchie and his team swept away all preconceptions about how to design a laboratory. Instead they visited neuroscientists around the world, gaining an intimate understanding of the way they use and construct the spaces around them. Through continuing dialogue, the design team imagined the new lab ‘from the inside out’, and then finished it with a stunning contemporary take on the Fitzrovia streetscape. IRAL have created adaptable, interconnected spaces that will foster interactions between researchers from different disciplines. The new centre, funded jointly by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, has attracted international leaders in the field to explore the networks of activity that are fundamental to our humanity.

Georgina Ferry’s text is based on interviews with all those involved, giving a rare insiders’ view of the process of creating a highly specialised building.