The Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project is part of an ambitious European strategy to support large international experimentation facilities across the continent.  The lasers at ELI will have intensities 10 times higher than anything currently achievable and will be used for research into material sciences, engineering, medicine, biology, chemistry, pharmacy and astrophysics.  The first centre, ELI Beamlines, has been located in in Dolní Břežany, Prague in the Czech Republic; further centres are planned for Hungary and Romania. Designed by the British firm, Bogle Architects, ELI received the Building of the Year Award at the 2014 Czech Architecture Week – quite an achievement for a complex which has an immense concrete box the size of a football pitch at its heart.

ELI is designed as a research campus of four buildings with offices, laboratories, multi-functional space including a lecture theatre and café and the laser hall.  Oversailing and unifying the campus is an elegant lightweight roof, the louvres of which allow light in winter and provide shade in summer.