In the tropics the rain arrives all at once. At the Essential Oil Research Centre we let the building catch it, show it and keep it.
In West Sumatra the rain does not drizzle. It arrives as a wall of water, fills every gutter in minutes, and is gone again an hour later. Most buildings treat that water as a problem to remove: pipe it away as fast as possible, out of sight, into the nearest drain.
At the Essential Oil Research Centre we wanted the opposite. The building is a planted hill. The labs sit under terraces of tropical herbs, and the herbs grow just outside the rooms that process them. A hill like that needs water, and the monsoon brings more than enough. So we asked the building to do three things with the rain: catch it, show it and keep it.
Catch it
A light canopy spans the central court. At its centre a 21-metre skylight gathers the rain from the roof and brings it to one point. On a dry day the skylight is a source of light for the plaza below. When the rain comes, it becomes a funnel.
Show it
From that point the water drops down a 12-metre rain chain, through rings planted with ferns. Rain chains are an old idea: instead of hiding the water in a downpipe, you let it run down a chain or a stack of cups, so that you can see it and hear it. Here the chain stands in the middle of the building, so a storm becomes something to watch rather than something to hide from.
Keep it
At the foot of the chain the water falls into a stepwell in the event plaza. Stepwells come from the dry regions of western India, where people built stairs down to the water, and the water rose and fell with the seasons. Ours works the other way round. On most days it is a sunken amphitheatre: steps to sit on, a place for talks and gatherings. During heavy rain, it fills.
When the stepwell is full, the water overflows to a reflecting pool, and from there into tanks, where it is stored and used again.
Old tools, a new place
None of this is new technology. Gutters, chains, steps and tanks are some of the oldest tools in building. What changes is where we put them: in the middle of the building, where everyone can see the rain doing its work, and where the water that falls on the roof stays on the site to grow the hill.
The research centre has been under construction since July 2025. We will follow it as it grows, and as the first monsoon fills the stepwell for real.
Images: Archigardener, unless otherwise stated. Terrain and site context: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0, https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright; produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved. Derived OpenStreetMap data available on request from the architect.