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Designing one of the world’s leading materials research facilities,
Henning Larsen, Kobe and SLA Landscape Architects have built a research facility to be home to the future’s most powerful accelerator-based neutron source in Lund, Sweden.
Dubbed the European Fragmentation Source (ESS), the 120,000 square meter facility will promote physical research for science and innovation.
Dubbed “one of the world’s leading,” the village-like facility features a flexible design and a future-proof master plan –
With a landscaped proton accelerator, a circular target roof, and scattering facility buildings intricately and subtly placed in the landscape.
The campus was envisioned as an international hub for world-renowned scholars,
while the design prioritizes a sense of community within the campus.
Which creates a collaboration and learning environment at the highest level.
The European Fragmentation Source is currently under construction and the first trials are expected to begin in 2025/2026.
The new European fragmentation source facility will be fully operational by 2027.
The complex will be used by researchers from materials science, chemistry, biology and physics.
The main purpose of the facility is to “produce neutrons that scientists can use to study the atomic and molecular structure of materials.”
Design features
“The ideas gathered using the tools at ESS will help suggest solutions
to society’s most pressing issues including new materials, energy, health and the environment,” said Henning Larsen.
The generation of neutrons through a process called spallation is a critical component of the BREEAM-accredited research campus.
It is a 600-meter long proton accelerator, which fires a high-energy proton beam at the target.
When protons hit a target, they cause atoms to break apart,
producing a shower of neutrons that are directed toward instruments that allow scientists to study the properties of materials.
The accelerator itself is located at an underground level, within a tunnel set within the landscape.
Hidden under a mound of soil is a building known as the “Klystron Gallery” located above the accelerator – visible only from one side, as a wall.
On the other hand, the building blends into the Swedish landscape and looks like a meadow.
The ESS research facility becomes a metaphor for the spallation process:
a neutron blasted through a linear accelerator collides with a tungsten nucleus.
Which leads to the scattering of electrons in the landscape.
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