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Work has begun on a new School of Engineering building on the King’s Buildings campus.
Scheduled for occupation in the spring of 2026, the new building will bring staff and students together in fresh spaces for learning, research, student-led innovation, and socialising, and create a new heart for the School of Engineering community.
Located at the southwest corner of the campus, next to the FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility and the Scottish Microelectronics Centre, the building will be completed at a cost of around £52 million. It will provide a home to leaders in the University strategic sustainability agenda while embracing low carbon technology in its material choices and construction methods.
Once complete, the building will deliver facilities which directly support experiential learning and active research into renewable energy systems, acting as a ‘living lab’ for emerging technologies in the fields of renewable energy and power systems and electronics.
The building will include:
- fully accessible spaces for teaching, studying, and meeting including a sub-divisible 120-person conference room; two 50-seat classrooms; a student innovation teaching space; a computer teaching laboratory; a refreshed Power Teaching Lab; and breakout spaces;
- dedicated student support spaces including new offices for the School’s Engineering Teaching Organisation, a one-stop-shop for students’ teaching and support needs;
- expanded facilities for the Institute of Energy Systems – which delivers world-leading research in low carbon energy systems, technology, and policy – providing its staff, researchers and students with new research labs, meeting rooms and offices;
- integral sustainable design and technology, such as a rooftop photovoltaic array, which will convert sunlight into renewable energy to power the building;
- a Net Zero Living lab which will enable researchers to monitor the building’s energy use in real time via microsensors installed over its four floors; and test out innovative heating systems to pave the way for further energy savings in future;
- new destinations to dine and socialise including a ground floor café, collaboration space, and outdoor terrace.
Head of School, Professor Gareth Harrison, said:
“The building will create a vibrant new physical environment for the Engineering community at the King’s Buildings campus, as befits the creativity, excellence, and innovation that will take place within its walls.
“The development will transform student experience by creating dedicated spaces for student-led projects, much needed social and collaboration spaces and will enable new opportunities for cutting edge programmes for the 21st century.
“The new building will also provide specialist research facilities, providing opportunity for an expansion in the School’s pioneering research activity in the critical area of sustainable energy systems.”
The new Engineering building forms part of a wider physical transformation of the King’s Buildings campus, which includes the new Nucleus Building – which opened in autumn 2022 – a shared learning, teaching and social hub for College of Science and Engineering staff and students at the heart of campus.
