The Himsworth Laboratory in the MRC’s Gambia Unit operates as the Regional Reference Laboratory (RRL) for the World Health Organisation’s Invasive Bacterial Vaccine- Preventable Diseases (IB-VPD) surveillance network. It supports more referring countries than any other RRL in the network and represents the African region.

Due to increasing workloads and multiple scientific  work streams including microbiology, molecular biology and DNA extraction the MRC appointed The Austin Company to provide an urgent solution to enhance their existing facility in the  shortest possible time scale to meet these expanding needs.

Working within the limitations of an existing building the client brief and practical considerations had to achieve several objectives:

• To improve materials, samples and personnel flow movement between the laboratory spaces.
• Provide additional space to help the scientists improve their Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
• Introduce additional containment to the existing laboratories to prevent contamination.
• Enhance the ventilation to the laboratories.
• The solutions had to be kept simple, resilient and easily maintainable given the geographical location, tropical climate conditions and limited material supply chains.
• The solution also had  to be implemented in the shortest possible quickly to meet the client’s pressing needs.

The solution proposed an extension onto two sides of the existing laboratory building forming a new circulation corridor and new change lobbies to the various laboratory spaces. New ventilation  air handling units, associated air conditioning and plant enclosures to house the equipment were designed to provide better ventilation and manage correct airflow regimes to the laboratories.

The  new corridor as well as meeting the objectives also acts as a positive pressure air supply plenum to maintain  the correct air flow direction to the laboratories, whilst minimising ingress of hot and humid external air into the building thus minimising supply air distribution ductwork.

The Austin Company provided a multi-disciplinary design including, architecture, structural, mechanical and electrical. The Austin Company also provided project management support working  collaboratively with the local Gambian client management team and building contractors during tender and construction.

The project required flexibility and a collaborative ethos by all parties to overcome unique challenges and was completed in December 2013.

“Many thanks for your hard work on this project. It is somewhat unusual to manage a project remotely, but you have done very well and I am really grateful for yours and your colleagues work. I  had the opportunity to see the work when I was out there and was very impressed!” Susan Simon, Head of Projects, Medical Research Council.

The University of Exeter are currently undertaking a major expansion of their Medical School at their Streatham Campus in the centre of Exeter. Part of this expansion includes the development of a new specialist Research Centre building, which is expected to be completed c2016.

Prior to this new facility becoming operational, the University had identified an urgent need to provide additional temporary specialist research facilities to cover an immediate shortfall prior to the new building becoming available. This shortfall is partially to be covered by the refurbishment of part of their existing Hatherly Laboratory building.

Due to recent experience The Austin Company have had with similar highly complex and specialist refurbishment projects, together with the ability to offer a seamless “fast track” approach, the University appointed The Austin Company to undertake the architectural, structural and services design (concept, preliminary and detailed) and construction of this important project.

At commencement, The Austin Company worked very closely with the facility users as well as surveying the existing building. One of the key drivers at this stage was to understand fully all user requirements and ensure that they could be provided within the constraints of a 1940’s building whilst recognising the associated regulatory requirements.

The refurbishment works (c400m²) involved the remodelling of a suite of rooms, located over 3 floor levels, wtihin the existing Hatherly building. These included specialist bioscience laboratories, associated specialist support and storage facilities. The scope of the works included replacement of all HVAC and electrical systems serving the most critical of these new areas.

New air handling and cooling plant and distribution services including laboratory gases were successfully co-ordinated and installed into highly constrained spaces, replacing the old existing plant. These new systems provide the refurbished suites with ventilation rates, pressure regimes and environmental control appropriate for the standards of modern laboratories.

The existing power and lighting were also stripped out and replaced in line with end user discussions throughout the process. A new standby generator provides backup power to the laboratory systems for both the F&G facility and refurbished suites.

The constraints of the existing building meant that in order to accommodate the required accommodation and to achieve appropriate, economic, safe adjacencies and work flow patterns, the layouts of the spaces and in particular attention to ergonomic requirements, were subject to detailed and very close liaison with the University’s user and estates teams as well as specialist equipment manufacturers. This also included close liaison with associated regulatory bodies to ensure successful planning, finishing, servicing and maintenance of the new facilities and to ensure successful handover, validation, regulatory certification and compliance.

“Very good response received from Senior Management” – Phill Alker, Project Manager “Standard of workmanship was very good” – Deb Galley, Facilities Manager

The University of Exeter are currently undertaking a major expansion of their Medical School at their Streatham Campus in the centre of Exeter. Part of this expansion includes the development of  new specialist Research Centre building, which is expected to be completed c2016.

Prior to this new facility becoming operational, the University had identified an urgent need to provide additional temporary specialist research facilities to cover an immediate shortfall prior to  the new building becoming available. This shortfall was to be covered by:

• the refurbishment of part of the existing Hatherly Laboratory building
• provision of a new extension wing to the
  Hatherly building.

Due to recent experience The Austin Company have had with similar, highly complex specialist facilities, both refurbishment and new build, together with the ability to offer a seamless “fast track”  approach, the University appointed Austin to undertake the architectural, structural and services design (concept, preliminary and detailed) and construction of this highly important facilities.

The separation of the project into two distinct elements allowed the most critical facilities (within the Hatherly building) to be provided first to meet the most pressing need, whilst the extension  would follow soon after, and provide the needed near-term expansion. The programme for the two elements was designed to benefit from the overlapping of both the respective design and construction stages thereby providing the most expedient, efficient and economical response in satisfying the identified and urgent requirements.

The refurbishment works (c400m²) involved the remodelling of a suite of specialist bioscience laboratories and associated support and storage facilities over three floor levels within the existing Hatherly building. New HVAC and electrical systems serving the most critical of these new areas.

The new extension building (c330m²) was designed as a self-contained facility consisting of two levels, linked by an internal stair and lift. The new facility incorporates its own air handling ventilation, cooling and humidification systems for internal environment control. This also provides correct negative and positive pressure regimes for containment purposes and to prevent ingress of contaminants. The constant volume air ventilation and controls are additionally integrated to various specialist laboratory support systems.

New power, lighting and fire alarm systems  were interfaced to the existing estate infra-structure, including a new standby generator providing back-up power to critical systems in both the refurbished suites and the new extension wing. Additionally specialist lighting controls were installed to the new laboratory suites to end-user specifications.

Following commissioning The Austin Company oversaw a two week environmental validation period prior to hand over.

Throughout both projects, close liaison with the University’s user and estates teams, specialist equipment manufacturers and associated regulatory bodies, proved essential for successful planning, finishing, servicing and maintenance of the new facilities, thereby ensuring successful handover, validation, regulatory certification and compliance.

“Many thanks to the Austin Team involved with delivering the project successfully” – Phill Alker, Project Manager- Deb Galley, Facilities Manager

The Medical Research Council (MRC) requested Austin to undertake an option study report (RIBA stages A & B) to look at the potential for expanding the existing Mary Lyon Centre on their Harwell Campus. The study was to ascertain the most appropriate way of accommodating the users’ identified requirements which included additional research facilities with support laboratories and ancillary facilities.

The study reviewed a number of options, including looking at the refurbishment of an existing building, a new build solution and extending the existing MLC building. On completion of the option  study, Austin was commissioned to undertake a RIBA stage C report to develop the identified preferred option.

The preferred solution was the creation of an extension to the existing MLC to provide the additional accommodation identified as well as incorporating flexible facilities for the future. The new extension, with a footprint area of 2,750m², has been designed to incorporate state of the art energy saving systems.

The extension includes eight separate research suites, as well as a breakout area and change/shower facilities. The support laboratory areas include twelve 6m² ‘flexi-labs’ designed to incorporate  electromagnetic shielding in the form of inbuilt individual faraday cage enclosures.

The extension has been designed with a similar architectural language to the existing MLC. The provision of brise soleil to the elevation adds to the articulation of the façade, humanises the  external scale of the building, and is integral to the energy reduction strategy adopted for the new building.

Included are three flexible wards in the centre of the building. These can be utilised for various research activities. This built in flexibility allows for current and anticipated mid-term business expansion needs.

Structurally, the building is designed with a minimum of 11 metres between column spacings allowing larger free spaces to be created. This allows long term flexibility and the ability to match existing research suite typology if redeployment and additional refurbishment of other areas of the extension is required in the future.

Mechanically, the systems have been designed such that the ventilation for the general well-being of the operatives is considered separately from that of the internal process needs. The
general ventilation incorporates a demand load control system. The process ventilation complies with both Home Office guidance and European directives. This allows for some relaxation in the tolerances applied to the tightness of air control delivered to the general ventilation system, with the ability to vary volume, temperature, and humidity outside of the normal guidance. This leads  o a predicted 50% reduction in energy costs.

As well as the separate process and general ventilation, the project includes solar hot water panels and a biomass boiler feeding back into the existing heating system. This makes use of on-site  waste and makes provision for future grey-water utilisation in proposed landscaping works.

Due to increased pressures on their existing quality assurance (QA) facility, Cadbury identified a need to create a new, state of the art facility that would provide both a QA focus and a “centre of excellence” at their historic Bournville manufacturing site.

The new facility would be capable of increasing through-put, and include multiple laboratories to undertake differing activities whilst maintaining required control and segregation. The facility would comply with the latest QA principles, meet the latest regulatory standards, be physically separate from the main manufacturing complex and be capable of future expansion should the need arise.

To optimise utilisation, the new facility had to be designed to allow minimal disruption during maintenance to the critical environments and ongoing scientific activities.

Cadbury commissioned The Austin Company to provide its experience and expertise in the review, design and construction of the new QA facility and to ensure that during the design and construction works, critical ongoing site operations were maintained without disruption.

The Austin Company’s commission was to carry out a concept study followed by Preliminary Engineering Study and concluded with detailed design and construction of the new state-of-the-art facility.

The building has a footprint of 720m² and incorporates a concrete mezzanine plant floor over the office and stores area. The laboratories have an accessible walk-on ceiling which is accessed from the plant mezzanine. This allows unhindered service distribution to the laboratory areas above ceiling level.

A centralised air handling plant provides conditioned air to the microbiology laboratories which employs a cascade pressure regime for containment. Constant volume boxes are employed on branches with terminal HEPA filtration to maintain the desired room pressure regimes.

Energy savings are achieved on the HVAC system using an indirect runaround coil arrangement and high efficiency modular boiler serving a variable volume heating system.

There are two microbiological and one analytical laboratories. The microbiology laboratories are designed as Containment Level 2 (CL2) which are positively segregated, with individual change lobbies equipped with sample pass through hatches. The building is configured to support the analysis and test flow with each laboratory layout reflecting the particular function requirements.

The electrical services included:

• High electrical load density requiring HV supply distributed by a packaged HV/LV substation switchboard.
• Clean room/laboratory requiring easily cleanable luminaires and accessories.
• Security comprising intruder detection and CCTV surveillance.
• Access control system to selected doors to create segregated secure zones within the building.
• Fire detection to P1/L1 category for property and life protection.
• BMS, security, CCTV, dire & sata services which are linked to the central site facility for monitoring.

Austin’s efforts were complemented with an award from Birmingham City Council in association with The Chartered Institute of Building and the Centre for Construction Excellence, for the Best Built-in Quality Project in Birmingham.

Austin are proud to provide Architectural and Building service solutions for 2 projects for the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) at Aberystwyth University.

In general the IBERS research establishment is aimed at improving agricultural productivity and food security, improving human health and providing environmental benefits.

IBERS is one of Europe’s largest centres for research and teaching in land and is set to become an International Centre to tackle three of the major issues facing world farming – food, energy and water security.

The Phenomics building, at the Gogerddan campus, consists of a 390m² climate controlled glasshouse with associated laboratories for conducting molecular biology research.  BREEAM ‘Excellent’ status will be achieved by various strategies including natural ventilation and a biomass boiler installation.  The University eventually plans to produce their own wood pellets to sustain their heating requirements.

Click here for a guided tour of this facility.

The flagship building on the Penglais site extends with various strategies including total natural ventilation of the building and a ground source heat pump installation.

At Austin we can achieve continuity in design with external BREEAM consultants by completing all building simulation modelling in house.  This allows us to provide the best solutions by means of iteration during design development.

Austin are currently mid way through the design process for this two projects at Aberystwyth University and the BREEAM targeted scores for both buildings is ‘Excellent’.

A specialist new building consisting of a suite of three laboratories together with associated store areas, open plan office, meeting room, break-out and welfare facilities. The new single storey building with a footprint of approximately 900m² will incorporate a mezzanine plant floor over the office and stores areas of 320m² allowing optimum services distribution to the new laboratories below.

The stand-a-lone building consists of a main steel frame, clad in composite steel cladding with a curved aluminium roof together with a projecting glazed “feature” entrance and meeting room. The building is designed to complement the “historic” location recognising the history of Cadbury’s association with Bournville, yet provides a modern image commensurate with the functions to be undertaken within the facility. The new facility will also comply with the latest energy conservation requirements required under part L2A of the Building Regulations.

Austin undertook the brief development, concept and preliminary design stages in 2008 undertaking the subsequent detailed design stage, with construction due to commence October 2009.

Although this project was not required by the Client for BREEAM rating, it includes all features that would be needed for a “Very Good” category.

This project is a 12,000m² facility providing four floors of research laboratories and associated offices, write up areas, meeting rooms and interaction areas.

Each floor operates independently via a dedicated plantroom per floor. Both offices and research laboratories have prefabricated service supply modules.

The voids act as a supply air plenum to the open plan areas.

The meeting rooms were designed for prefabrication off site and are fully demountable for easy relocation.

A “No Ceiling” philosophy has been adopted to allow easy access for flexibility and maintenance.

The open plan laboratories accommodate 260 fume cupboards. A full height atrium fronts the office and serves to connect existing buildings on both sides providing a casual meeting space on the ground floor, a refreshment hub and direct access to a library and meeting rooms.

The BDU in South Mimms, Hertfordshire is designed specifically for the production of early phase clinical to cGMP. Biotherapeutics are at the cutting edge of new cancer treatments, and in order to achieve significant advances, the very best and most advanced facilities are required. This replacement for an existing unit is therefore a hugely exciting development for the charity.

The 2,000m² building contains GMP production (mammalian microbial/years, viral technologies), GMP support, final fill process, assay development, QC laboratories, stores, utilities and offices.

The design incorporates significant improvements in personnel and materials flow, equipment reliability, planned maintenance, process efficiency, scheduling, office space, information flow, roles and responsibilities while being versatile scalable and flexible.

The facility includes classified areas of about 300m² on the main production floor with mezzanines for air handling equipment and a basement area for utilities.

The building air leakage test achieved 3.3m³ / hour / m² @ 50pa which is an excellent result as best practice allows this figure to be below 10.

The carbon emissions calculated indicate the building to be an Energy Efficient Building.

Gillian Lewis, Programme Lead said, “Austin was selected to design and engineer this project after an exhaustive selection process, in part because we felt they could match our requirements with a team we could work with.

The successful delivery of the build on-time and ahead of budget has provided a state of the art facility which allows Cancer Research UK to expand research in the years to come.

Austin delivered the development of this building with savings in excess of £1 million.”

The Austin Company is proud and delighted to have won Cancer Research UK’s Best Supplier Award for 2009.

Austin had to provide their expertise on laboratory design on this project, as part of a research and teaching facility including sports, health and wellbeing, laboratory facilities to enable a new style of group teaching.

Also to accommodate the University’s brief to enable up to 260 students in a single space to be taught at the same time or enable a number of teaching groups to be accommodated at the same time.

Research and teaching facilities are located on two floors. The lower floor houses the research labs including Category II and III containment facilities.

The upper floor has the main 260 person teaching lab.

Fume cupboards and safety cabinets are located together on one side of the main space. Benching is supplied with various different gases, power and data and localized vacuum to allow flexible use.

The key teaching aid is an interactive display screen for each student.

Austin provided Architectural design input during the design phases up to Stage E and subsequent Architectural and Building Services design audit throughout the project to handover.

The new research building has been described as “Europe’s most advanced science teaching facility” and achieved BREEAM Rating of Very Good.