According to Zhang, the pioneering design for the cell-shaped building was inspired by "elegantly folded protein structures and their simple and beautiful structural motifs. The cell-shaped building attempts to combine the architecture and the biology structures," he said.

Kulper said the design of the building also arose from the pioneering spirit he discovered among life scientists and biological engineers. "They are always working at the threshold of understanding," Kulper said.

"When I took Shuguang's course, I was thrilled to learn that structural biologists had developed such an amazing language for describing new and complex forms. Also, structural biology is basically concerned with the sort of geometries that architects and designers often work with, though on a completely different scale. It's a very visual field that communicates more through illustration than through symbol," Kulper said.

The seeds of Kulper's involvement in the Sichuan University project began in conversations he had with Zhang, a known admirer of architecture, during the year in which he took Zhang's course. Zhang encouraged Kulper both to apply principles of scientific research to his work in architecture -- "Explore the unknowns and navigate the uncharted territories," he urged -- and to spend time in Zhang's laboratory learning about bioengineering.

The next year, Zhang contacted Kulper with the news that he was now the founding advisor of a new research institute at Sichuan University.

Kulper said, "Zhang offered me the opportunity to develop concepts for the building, which, as a biological research building, would give us an opportunity to design for a client that would appreciate details that referenced biological concepts. I started work on sketches immediately once he had given me some basic information regarding the functional requirements of
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Contact: Elizabeth Thomson
thomson@mit.edu
617-258-5402
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
7-Aug-2006