Green succeeds in new lab design

St Andrews is now officially the winner of something besides number of royals, red trousers, and Barbour jackets, as the Biomedical Sciences Research Complex’s new laboratory has been rated the most eco-friendly lab in the country.

This building is the first laboratory in the UK, as well as the only building in Scotland to receive this award, given by the BREEAM. The design committee in charge of the building’s construction aimed to create a building with a world-champion environmental performance for less money – a goal which they accomplished.

The committee created an entirely new way of constructing a building, and even ‘enhanced’ surrounding habitats (though one wonders how much the Badlands can actually be enhanced). Their determination to include extra environmental features miraculously added no cost or delay to the building process.

Mark Simpson of the University Estates department summed up community feeling when he said:

“The University takes its environmental commitments very seriously. We recognised that with this building there was a real opportunity to do something special, and we are delighted to have achieved just that.”

Image courtesy of the Univeristy of St Andrews