The building
Devonshire building is a flagship environmental building for Newcastle University and is home to laboratories & office space for the University’s multidisciplinary environmental and e-science research centre.
The building was the first University building in Britain to achieve a BREEAM excellent rating.
The Project
An unused I.T. suite within the Ground Floor was identified as a space for a new synthetic biology laboratory.
The works entailed removing the active chilled/heating beams within the space whilst ensuring the other temperature-controlled rooms were not disturbed as the building has temperature sensitive equipment throughout.
Once this work was completed, we undertook the installation of a state of the art laboratory including warm-air heating, dedicated extract systems, fume cupboards, autoclaves and a fully intelligent automatic controls system. All of the systems had to be designed and installed to maintain the building’s excellent BREEAM rating.
Throughout the works the remainder of the building remained operational and other than the dedicated extract systems all systems had to be connected to the building’s central plant/distribution.
Each break-in/swap over had to be booked in well in advance due to the multiple users/research groups within the building. Close co-operation of all parties was critical to the success of the project and through regular planning & programme meetings and management the Project was completed on time and to the Client/End User’s satisfaction.
