MASA Research Center

MASA funds research into low-carbon construction materials; its headquarters had to be its first publication. The facade is a prototype: precast panels with a rippled geometry that stiffens thin concrete without reinforcement, cutting embodied carbon by a measured forty per cent.

Inside, the logic continues. Laboratories are generic and daylit, designed for experiments that have not been invented yet. Services run exposed in a raised plenum; walls are unlined concrete so every test panel can be mounted, monitored and replaced.

The courtyard collects failures. Panels that cracked, warped or faded are displayed along the arcade with dated plaques — a building that publishes its own peer review, indoors and out.