13 December 2005
Buro Happold has been appointed as Building Services and Structural Engineers on a project to develop the Biomedical Building for the University of Strathclyde.
This £28m new building will see the expansion of the existing John Arbuthnott building to accommodate the newly created Strathclyde Institute for Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences on a single site. This will allow the institute to operate as a single, cohesive department. Currently the Biomedical Sciences at Strathclyde comprises five separate departments (Applied Physiology, Bioscience, Immunology, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Physiology and Pharmacology) housed in three buildings across two campuses.
The engineering challenge is to produce the high quality and flexible laboratory and ancillary spaces such a vision demands, while ensuring that the building, the first new development in the Strathclyde University masterplan, sets a benchmark for sustainability. It is generally recognised that, in the 21st century, biosciences are destined to undergo a dramatic transition to reach a higher level of quantitative precision. The ultimate (although still distant) goal is to understand living systems in terms of properties of their constituent molecules. Achieving this will require an emphasis on quantitative and integrative approaches that draw on skills, expertise and instrumentation from a wide range of disciplines including the arts, physical sciences, mathematics, engineering and computation.
Rod Manson, Partner with Buro Happold, comments: ‘We are absolutely delighted to be appointed as multi-discipline engineers on the Strathclyde University project. It will be one of the most significant higher education buildings in Scotland and our designers are ready to take on the challenges that the project presents. Our previous experience on biomedical buildings will prove vital in the development of the complex design solutions for this particular project’.
ENDS
Laura Hughes
Telephone +44 (0)141 419 3036
Fax +44 (0)870 787 4146
Mobile +44 (0)7753 829664
Email laura.hughes@burohappold.com
