£41m university building reaches important milestone
The construction of a £41m university building in Birmingham has reached a significant milestone with its formal topping out.
Contractor BAM and local stakeholders were joined by staff and students from Birmingham City University at the institution’s new Health Sciences and Education building for the topping out ceremony.
The 10,500m² extension on Westbourne Road in Edgbaston forms part of the university’s City South Campus.
The new development, set to open in 2018, will also see the relocation of the university’s School of Education, consolidating the Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences on to one site.
Designed by architects Sheppard Robson, the building is intended to reinforce BCU’s status as the region’s largest provider of qualified health and social care professionals to the NHS and producer of more teachers than any other institution in the West Midlands.
The interior of the new BCU Health Sciences and Education building
The space will offer teacher training and specialist facilities for health sciences including provision for research, a new lecture theatre, a multi-purpose hall, speech therapy, physiotherapy and ultrasound suites, art and technology classrooms and IT hubs.
Speaking at the topping out ceremony, Professor Graham Upton, Vice-Chancellor of Birmingham City University, said: “Today marks an exciting new chapter in the university’s long and proud history. Not only will this new building allow us to strengthen our existing education teaching and research programmes, we will also be offering a wide range of new health, nutrition and biomedical science courses.
“The new Health Sciences and Education building offers students and staff the highest quality facilities available to ensure that we are best equipped to provide for the next generation of public health and education professionals in the West Midlands.
“The new building also strengthens our student experience and university community by allowing us to house our health and education offerings on one site for the first time. In doing so, we are creating a significant hub for our public service contracts and professional development provision in Edgbaston.”
The new BCU Health Sciences and Education building
The building forms part of the university’s £260m investment into its facilities, which will be further strengthened later this year with the opening of the new £57m Birmingham Conservatoire.
As part of the City South Campus extension, students from the university’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment have been working alongside BAM to gain real-life work experience of the construction industry.
Colin Harper, BAM project manager, said: “This could be Birmingham’s most advanced construction scheme. Our sector is undergoing a quiet technical revolution. Digital techniques are helping us and our supply chain deliver both the speed and quality we need for complex modern buildings like this one.”
