Harwell Building 383

Building 383 is a Medical Research Building on the Harwell Research Campus and was constructed as a specific research building in approximately 1950.  As such it has been continually modified and altered over the years and the aim of this 3 phase project was to upgrade the building from the structure up, to suit current and future needs whilst maintaining operations and limiting the impact to the surrounding laboratories and research.

Keegans were employed to undertake full Quantity Surveying duties from inception through to completion.

The building comprises of basement, ground and first floors which contain laboratories, including microsopy, isolation suite, molecular biology, clinical chemistry, necropsy, tissue culture, cold rooms, chemical & gas stores, offices, meeting rooms, canteen, breakout areas, toilets, showers, changing rooms and  library.

The building infrastructure was generally replaced including new distribution boards and pipework, new electrical services comprising lighting, emergency lighting, small power and three phase power for equipment, fire alarm and IT.  The building had an existing standby generator providing essential supplies.  

Mechanical services comprised of air-conditioning, fume extract, fumigation systems, carbon dioxide monitoring, oxygen monitoring, heating, cooling, mains water, domestic hot & cold water, laboratory gases,  above ground drainage and building management system (BMS).

A new Low Pressure Hot Water packaged boiler room was installed to replace old steam generators providing heat and domestic hot water.

Specialist equipment incorporated within the building includes safety cabinets, fume cupboards, laminar flow hoods, down draught tables, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machines, imaging equipment, microscopes, +4 cold rooms, -20 cold rooms, incubators and catering equipment.

The project required Keegans to work closely with the client team and end users to ensure that the procurement and works were scheduled to cause minimal disruption to the users.  This comprised of the 3 main phases (contracts) and various “sub-phases”.  This enabled strip-out works to be undertake including the removal of specialist equipment and lead lining together with various decants to ensure minimal disruption to users and co-ordinate with the infrastructure upgrades.