The Life Sciences Building
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Edmund Sumner (website) Download Original
Addition to the Highfield campus of Southampton University, for the School of Medicine and Biological Sciences and School of Electronics and Computer Sciences
The 10,000m2 building accommodates approximately 450 occupants. It provides faculty, administration, office and social spaces along with seminar rooms, a learning centre and general and teaching laboratories.
The building is organised with the teaching areas around the base of a central light well and with research laboratories wrapping around two sides of the upper light well space, from which write-up terraces and offices are accessed. The atrium space brings daylight deep into the building and acts as a stack for natural ventilation of all non-laboratory areas.
At the top of the four-storey building, a rooftop ‘observatory’ provides high quality meeting and interaction space for the occupants with views over the city, towards the sea.
Data
- Begun: 2008
- Completed: 2010
- Floor area: 10,000m2
- Sector: Education
- Total cost: £35M
- Procurement: Design & Build
- CO2 Emissions: 22.8kg/m2/year
- Address: The Life Sciences Building, University of Southampton, Highfield Campus, University Road, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: NBBJ
- Client: University of Southampton
- Structural engineer: Adams Kara Taylor
- Services engineer: Arup
- Quantity surveyor: EC Harris
- Planning supervisor: White Young Green
- Main contractor: BAM Construction
- Landscape architect: Plincke Design
- Landscape architect: Ubu Design
- Sustainability consultant: Short and Associates
- Project manager: Buro Four
Suppliers
- Curtain walling: VHB Memmingen
- Timber rainscreen: BCL Timber Projects
