The Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics was completed in Autumn 2016. It has already won the local City of Durham Trust Architectural Award 2016, as well as an RIBA NorthEast Award 2017, crediting Garbers & James as Additional Architect.

It has been a great pleasure and privilege to support Studio Libeskind, over the last four years or so, in the realisation of the Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics.

Building on more than 16 years collective experience of working at senior level within Daniel Libeskind’s Studio (SL) before founding our own office in 2006, Garbers & James were well placed to provide seamless representation of the New York practice in the UK.

SL won an international competition early in 2013 to design and deliver the building. Garbers & James provided wide-ranging support services throughout the process including:

– Competition support in the UK

– Client representation

– Brief Development

– Public representation and Community Engagement

– City Planning (in the context of World Heritage Site) and Building Control Approvals

– Specification writing

– UK Design Team representation and coordination

– Procurement representation

– Site Supervision

It was inspiring to be part of a scheme that discussed and brought to reality the parallel spatial challenges and constructs from the cosmos to the building site.

Client representation included getting to know something of how particle physics phenomenologists, computational cosmologists, extragalactic astronomers and advanced instrumentalists tick and work, both as individuals and in teams, to crack some of the most exciting questions and challenges today in our very small world.

Garbers & James wish all users well in The Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics, and trust the building will support them admirably in their truly fantastic quests in life.