The two laboratories are located in Mestre, on an area granted by the municipality to the Venetian universities for the creation of a science hub.

Its central core consists of a “struttura di contrasto” (a grid of reinforced concrete walls extending deep underground) and a “carro ponte” supported by two rows of pillars.

The building is conceived as a shell lowered from above to protect the central core, which is imagined as pre-existing.

The interior space is modulated by natural light entering from below and above.

From below, light enters through a glazed perimeter slit that separates the shell from the base; from above, through a series of smaller skylights surrounding the large central skylight. A vertical axis ideally connects the underground structure to the luminous box of the central skylight, symbolically grounding a space with industrial characteristics.

The two halves of the rooftop terrace, connected by an overhanging external walkway, define a walled roof garden. The building shell is clad in ventilated slabs of pink nembro marble.

The skylights are covered with quartz-zinc sheets.

A slight depression in the ground isolates the volume of the new laboratory: this basin is built in opus signinum, using fragments of the marble employed for the façade in the concrete