It has been almost a year since most of us stepped foot on campus due to the current Covid-19 situation. However, despite the many challenges and some delays, progress has continued in one of the University's flagship projects, the £38m Science Teaching Hub, which will provide flexible, serviced laboratory spaces to accommodate specialist teaching across many Schools.
Graeme Paton, the Head of the School of Biological Sciences, is the project Director and here he provides an insight into how things are coming along.
If all goes to plan, the Science Teaching Hub is due to be completed in November and will be ready for occupation in January 2022. The impact of the Covid pandemic has delayed the progress by about six months. For several months there was no activity on site due to the lockdown. Then, to maintain safe working conditions on site, Roberston’s (the builder) developed a detailed risk assessment to protect all staff. This includes screening all staff accessing site, enhanced welfare provision and physical distancing of two metres. With these changes, all the time plans needed overhauled.
Things are moving along but, of course, there is still some way to go. The cladding and the glass give the external personality to the building, but there are still electrical and mechanical works in the background. There are also lots of internal refinements which need to be made, from water and gas supplies, to chemical resistant flooring and fume hoods. It’s all about getting the detail correct. Monthly update podcasts are being viewed by about 300 staff and I hope this number will grow in the coming months as staff begin to adapt and translate their lab classes to the new opportunities offered by this facility.
Going forward, how we learn will be impacted by Covid, but such spaces are essential to train the next generation of scientists. I think the nature of how we teach, timetable and use science space will be changed by Covid, so we need to be dynamic and see opportunities. We need our graduates to have the technical skills and lab confidence to succeed in their future science career. If a physical distancing rule needs to be enforced, then we have better capacity in this building than our current estate.