Intech 2000 Interactive Technology Centre
INTECH is an educational charity run by the Hampshire Technology Centre Trust Ltd. Its purpose is to further the knowledge of science and technology to classes of children from all parts of the school system, although adults are also actively encouraged to take advantage of the facility.
The main exhibition building is designed as a white pyramid and the adjacent
auditorium, which is designed to accommodate a planetarium at a future date,
is circular on plan with a white hemispherical roof. The architectural forms
are made as geometrically pure as possible and, combined with innovative
engineering and the nearby proximity of communication satellite dishes,
are intended to be symbolic of modern technology at the start of the new
century.
The site is gently sloping and the building is designed on the principle
of cut and fill into the natural chalk down land. Excavated earth from the
construction of the building is used to make banks around the two roofs
shapes in order to tie them into the landscape.
The Exhibition Hall is on two levels with vertical circulation focused on a double height space with a full height glazed bay revealing a dramatic view of the rolling down land landscape to the south. The two northern sides of the upper level are lined with ancillary accommodation, café, kitchen and shop on one side, toilets, administration offices and meeting room on the other. Self-contained flat ‘roofs’ over these blocks accommodate plant systems while at the same time allowing the pyramid roof to remain visible from the Exhibition areas.
On the lower level the demonstration classroom is used in association with
the Equipment Library and Resources Centre to brief teachers and students
in the use of project-related equipment. The Staff Workshops, where the
exhibits are made and maintained, has an external loading bay at one end
and direct access into the Exhibition Hall at the other. The two buildings,
Exhibition Hall and Auditorium are joined together by a flat-roofed glazed
link designed to feel like a light-weight bridge from which there are good
views through floor to ceiling structural glazing.
