Life Sciences Building
The development of a new £22.5 million plus fit out purpose-built science building at Byrom Street will enable LJMU to consolidate the majority of its teaching and research in science and technology within one strategic Liverpool city centre site.
Designed by architects at Austin Smith Lord, Liverpool, the development of the new building will enable LJMU to relocate two academic Schools in the Faculty of Science (Psychology and Sport and Exercise Sciences) from the Henry Cotton Building (Webster Street L3) to Byrom Street.
Around 50% of the new building's 6,400 sq.metre floorspace will be given over to specialist teaching and research laboratories, with the remainder being used for teaching, IT suites and staff accommodation.
Given the variable topography of the site and the close proximity of suburban housing along its perimeter, the building has a stepped design, which architect Dominic Wilkinson describes as a being a "box within a box".
Access to the building will be via a double height foyer with cascading staircase and small café. An interior "box", on the lower and upper ground floors, will house specialist sport and exercise science labs. Many of these require very controlled environments and minimal natural light, such as the sleep lab (or temporal isolation laboratory), which is used by LJMU scientists analysing the role of the human body clock to manipulate waking and sleeping cycles.
LJMU's School of Sport and Exercise Sciences is ranked as the UK's number one for both teaching and research in this field. The specialist facilities housed within the new building reflect the School's elite status and will include an indoor 70-metre running track and labs for testing cardio-vascular ability, motor skills and bio-mechanics functions. The building will also have additional biochemistry and psychology teaching labs.
Whereas the labs are highly specialised in design, the general staff and teaching accommodation is designed to be very flexible. As far as possible, layouts have been 'future proofed' to ensure that they can be easily adapted for different uses, with ancillary uses and services clustered together in designated zones.
The building is divided into two main blocks, with the higher 5-storey section located towards the main entrance of Byrom Street and the lower 3-storey element located to the rear. The circulation block will be clad in slate grey eternity panels, set against a glass skin made up of cast glass planks that will give the building a high degree of transparency. When looked at obliquely, these glass panels will also give off a shimmering effect bringing a degree of movement and lightness to the facade.
LJMU is aiming to achieve the BRE's BREAM environmental rating of 'very good' for the new building, which will use a Biomass boiler burning UK-sourced wood pellets and a rain water harvesting system.
Work started on the new building in April 2008, with completion due for the start of the first semester in 2009.
In July 2008, the Vice-Chancellor announced that the building would be named the "Tom Reilly building" in recognition of LJMU's illustrious Professor of Sport Science. To read the full story click here.
