LIFE Campus: Designed for Learning

Education

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© Rasmus Hjortshøj

How can we prevent cancer? How can we solve the climate crisis? How can we feed a growing population sustainably? These are some of the issues that Danish school children explore when they visit the LIFE Campus.

LIFE Campus is a visionary national learning center in an impressive new building nestled in the old hunting grounds in Lyngby, north of Copenhagen. A building designed specifically to promote children’s interest in the natural sciences. And one where the architecture plays a key role.

A Mathematical Pattern

The first sight children and young people visiting LIFE Campus meet is 96 oakwood columns. With a height of 9 meters and weighing as much as a passenger car, each column has been strategically placed. Together, they represent the mathematical Fibonacci pattern and DNA strands. The 96 wooden columns made from 150-year-old oak trees mark the transition between a living landscape and a living building, inspired by the natural surroundings. 

Educational Architecture

When you step through the doors to the learning center, you enter a sensory environment with varying spatial experiences. With its distinctive materials, visible pipes and conduits, and thought-provoking construction, the building is designed not only to facilitate learning – but to embody it. 

The building’s educational activities are centered around three teaching laboratories and a research laboratory. Working as researchers and scientists, schoolchildren are presented with societal issues – both minor and major –  that reflect the work being done in research environments at universities and in the private sector and that support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. 

State-of-the-Art Auditorium

In the heart of LIFE Campus you will find northern Europe’s largest 360-degree auditorium, equipped with a state-of-the-art AV and sound system, designed to take visitors on journeys from the Earth’s core to the farthest reaches of our galaxy.

In addition to being a learning center, the building houses the headquarters and offices of the not-for-profit LIFE Foundation, an epicenter for the growth and accessibility of life sciences in Denmark.

Integrated into Lyngby’s Natural Surroundings

LIFE Campus is integrated into the beautiful natural surroundings of the Dyrehavegårds Jorder area in Lyngby. Here, science connects with nature with the establishment of a large park that is home to, among other things, a collection of 22 species of Danish trees and 42 different apple and pear varieties. You will also find art installations by Jeppe Hein and a shelter and camping area for school groups. 

LIFE Campus is located close to the Helsingør freeway with both the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the new Novozymes Innovation Campus as its neighbors.

Area

Lyngby-en

Architect

Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects

Engineer

COWI

Client

Novo Nordisk Fonden

Landscape architect

LYTT

Built

2021