News - 28 April 2016

Bioscience building’s ‘out of this world’ features unveiled at milestone event

A significant milestone in the construction of a £30million Nottingham bioscience building – co-funded by the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) – will be marked tomorrow (Friday April 29).

Innovative designs for a unique solar installation to feature on the building will also be unveiled.

Developers, contractors and council leaders will gather to celebrate the final concrete being poured to create the state-of-the-art bioscience ‘incubator’ building, overlooking Lower Parliament Street; an expansion of the highly successful BioCity Nottingham complex. The five-storey building will support more than 700 new bioscience roles in the city over the next 30 years and cement Nottingham’s position as the UK’s fastest growing life sciences community.

An integral feature of the building design will be a sunscreen, known as a ‘Brise Soleil’ which reduces the risk of the building overheating. It will also help make the building more energy efficient by minimising the need for air conditioning.

Innovative designs for the Brise Soleil will be revealed at tomorrow’s event by acclaimed local artist Wolfgang Buttress, in partnership with physicist Dr Martin Bencsik of Nottingham Trent University. The installation, known as Corona, will link the building with solar flares measured by NASA satellites, feeding signals to an integrated lighting system, to provide a stunning entrance to the eastside of the city.

The sculpture will form a curtain of aluminium tubes 17 metres high across the front of the building, embedded with fibre-optic lights which respond to signals from NASA satellites.

The bioscience building expansion is being delivered by a number of local partners under the Scape framework. The site was bought, cleared and decontaminated by Nottingham City Council, and the project has been funded by the City Council, and with £6.5m from the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership’s £192million Local Growth Fund allocation. The private sector-led LEP is a partnership of business, local authorities, skills and training providers, and community and voluntary organisations which works to grow the economy and create jobs across Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. Life sciences is one of its eight key economic sectors.

Other partners on the biosciences project are contractor Willmott Dixon, Nottingham architects CPMG, Notts-based consulting engineers Morgan Tucker, construction consultancy Gleeds, multi-disciplinary practitioner Pick Everard and electrical engineers Couch Perry Wilkes.

The facility will be operated by BioCity on behalf of the Council when completed in spring 2017.

Councillor Jon Collins, Leader for Nottingham City Council and Portfolio Holder for Strategic Regeneration, said: “This building recognises the importance of bioscience to our local economy and, just as the first BioCity building has done so successfully, it will provide fledgling companies and the next generation of entrepreneurs the chance to grow and expand by making use of a range of high-tech chemistry and biology laboratories.”

Peter Richardson, Chairman of the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership, added: “Excellent progress has been made on the new BioCity Nottingham site and, once it is complete next year, the innovative ‘Brise Soleil’ sunscreen will really make the facility stand out.

“Equally this major project, aided by a £6.5m grant from the D2N2 LEP, will make our area stand out as a UK leader in growing the life sciences sector.”

Dr Glenn Crocker, Chief Executive at BioCity, said: “This is a significant moment, not just for BioCity and the companies based here, but for Nottingham. BioCity is extending its reach across the UK but it is particularly satisfying that we are still growing here in Nottingham, where the BioCity story began.”

Media and invited guests will attend a short ‘topping out’ ceremony at the site tomorrow and the unveiling of the Brise Soleil designs.

For more information on how D2N2 is supporting life sciences and its other key sectors see its website at www.d2n2lep.org/Key-Sectors

Media wanting more information on tomorrow’s event can contact Stephan Richeux, Nottingham City Council Media Manager, on 0115 876 3309 or email: Stephan.richeux@nottinghamcity.gov.uk .

The media contact for information on the D2N2 LEP is D2N2 Communications Manager Sean Kirby, on 0115 9578749 or email: sean.kirby@d2n2lep.org

Latest News & Events

27 September 2023

Ratio Technology Transforms Bike Component Manufacturing with Made Smarter Support

Read Article

22 September 2023

D2N2 leads highly successful launch of East Midlands Hydrogen

Read Article

21 September 2023

D2N2 CEO Will Morlidge shares his thoughts on East Midlands Hydrogen

Read Article

19 September 2023

Spotlight on our D2N2 Enterprise Advisers: meet Anna Smith, Enterprise Adviser, Da Vinci Academy, Derby

Read Article

14 September 2023

Spotlight on our D2N2 Enterprise Advisers: meet Amanda Stevenson-Bate, Enterprise Adviser, Derby Moor Spencer Academy, Derby

Read Article

07 September 2023

D2N2 Cornerstone Employers discuss the Social Value Act and the importance of supporting local schools in new film

Read Article

06 September 2023

Former ‘Megawatt Valley’ to metamorphose into hydrogen heartland with the launch of East Midlands Hydrogen – the UK’s largest inland hydrogen cluster

Read Article

05 September 2023

Derby Museums publishes report revealing the impressive social impact of the Museum of Making capital project

Read Article

31 August 2023

D2N2 is seeking delivery partners for Wave 5 of Skills Bootcamps in Digital and Green Skills

Read Article

22 August 2023

D2N2 Skills Bootcamps provider Althaus Digital rated Outstanding by Ofsted

Read Article

Get in touch.

Subscribe to get our latest updates.

Sign up
Address

D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership
8 Experian Way
Nottingham
Nottinghamshire
NG2 1EP

Social

Our Partners