DARK Moves to Brand New Offices and Officially Becomes DARK
The Niels Bohr Institute’s astronomy research unit DARK (formerly known as the Dark Cosmology Centre) receives a fresh look upon its move to the new offices at Vibenshuset. Vibenshuset is the old Galle & Jessen chocolate factory located at Lyngybyvej 2.
Recently, the building has been fully renovated in order to accommodate the needs of a modern office environment and it hosts a number of international companies.
Open office environment - a science green house
The new offices have been renovated for this purpose and offer completely new and state of the art open floor plan offices. Moving to this new open office environment has pushed DARK to see new opportunities and create new working routines such as a code of harmony, which gives guidelines on respectful ways to function in an open office, so that the disruptions and disturbances are minimal for everyone. In the same time, the aim is to create an esthetical surrounding based on a homogeneous look and a greehouse feeling thanks to vegetation and plants which will act as separators. The overall aim is to enable people to interact and collaborate but also to give them the peace and the quiet that they need in order to focus on their science.
New location, new design, new name
Many parameters were at play when the decision was made to make the change from "Dark Cosmology Centre" to "DARK": One was that DARK has become the popular name, used by staff, guests and press alike. Another is that the section is no longer a DNRF "centre" in the strict sense of the term. the third reason, which is probably the most important, is that DARK's former name, “Dark Cosmology Centre" presented a research focus on cosmology; however, in the period from 2005 to today, the research focus at DARK has widened considerably is is expected to continue to do so. Hence, the old name was considered too restricting. Finally, DARK moving to this new location was the perfect opportunity to make the change official and mark the change by re-branding the name, logo, and corporate graphics.
“Re-branding ourselves as “DARK” signals a somewhat larger scientific breadth for the future. Cosmology will continue to be a key research focus at DARK.“, says DARK’s leader Prof. Jens Hjorth.