An epitome of urban placemaking
By bringing together public, private, academic, and clinical organisations in a complementary ecosystem, the aim is to secure sustainable economic growth by harnessing the knowledge economy.
In the Midlands, Birmingham is setting the pace for this model. Calthorpe Estates’ Edgbaston Medical Quarter hosts 64% of the city's healthcare economy, the University of Birmingham’s medical school and Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Nearby, Bruntwood Sci-Tech has outlined ambitious plans to develop Birmingham Health Innovation Campus in partnership with the University, with more than 657,000 square feet of lab, office and incubation space in the pipeline.
This latest life science site follows on from the success of the Innovation Birmingham campus; a collaboration between the developer and the city’s redbrick university announced in 2018.
📈 It is on course to generate 10,000 tech jobs by 2030.
Meanwhile, in the East Midlands, Derby and Nottingham have set out plans to build an innovation campus around the Toton HS2 hub in between the two cities with a similar target of supporting thousands of high-value jobs.
The University of Derby Science Park benefits from co-location with the global headquarters of Rolls-Royce, while the University of Nottingham is home to the award-winning GlaxoSmithKline Laboratory for Sustainable Chemistry; the UK’s first carbon-neutral laboratory.
Underpinning all these clusters is the requirement for world-leading R&D spaces. Despite the changes which 2020 has accelerated, Zoom cannot replace the laboratory.
For starters, laboratory space is the most expensive per square foot to build. Planning considerations, M&E challenges, power, ventilation, and digital connectivity are also complicated.
Increasingly, the ask is for these spaces to be flexible, scalable, and sustainable. But this is just the base requirement.
To attract discerning knowledge workers, wider placemaking considerations are equally important.
This virtual roundtable explored evolving occupier demands and the design and build challenges associated with meeting them.
