University Center for Dentistry (UZB)

The new University Center for Dentistry (UZB) was built in the Rosental area of Kleinbasel at the corner of Mattenstrasse/Maulbeerstrasse between 2016 and 2019.

In 2013, a design by BUR Architects was selected in a competition as a replacement building for the Center for Dentistry previously located between St. Peter’s Square and Hebelstrasse. The new construction followed the decision to spatially consolidate the Department of Dentistry with the Teaching and Public Dental Clinic. The new center occupies three-quarters of the 7000-square-meter new building area, with the other quarter available to the Department of Environmental Sciences (DUW). As the first university building newly erected by the University of Basel in Kleinbasel, the center forms a core part of the Rosental site. Previously, the German Department had been temporarily housed in an office building on Clarastrasse in Kleinbasel in the 1970s/80s. From 2004, the Center for Biomedicine was also temporarily located in a former Novartis building on the Rosental site at Mattenstrasse.

The construction of the new UZB has created a state-of-the-art dental clinic, with eighty-seven treatment rooms, two minor surgery rooms, a phantom hall, and a central sterile supply facility, as well as modern facilities for university teaching. These include a lecture hall for around 160 people, seminar and group rooms of various sizes, and the new Rosental University Library with spacious reading rooms. The building reflects a new trend: it allows for adaptation to continuously changing needs through a building structure with an optimal arrangement of service cores allowing for flexible interior management.