Make’s design for a new 16,000m2 building incorporating The Oxford BioEscalator and key amenity facilities for the University of Oxford's Old Road Campus received planning yesterday evening. The building aims to deliver a high-quality, user-friendly facility at the centre of the campus, and incorporates a public cafe, gym, range of meeting spaces, along with multi-storey car park for 456 cars and a delivery and waste consolidation centre. Organised around 'The Cut' – a dramatic entrance which serves the social amenity spaces, The BioEscalator, and car park – the design ensures the building becomes a focal point of activity for the campus.
The Oxford BioEscalator, part of the Oxford City Deal, is a fully flexible medical research laboratory, involving a consortium of stakeholders, which will act as a catalyst for the translation and commercialisation of the university's medical and clinical research for the benefit of patients and the wider public.
Justin Nicholls, Make partner and lead project architect, commented: “This new social, cultural and functional hub, incorporating a world-leading innovation centre, will help drive forward discoveries in medical science by providing a focal point for interaction between researchers, clinicians and entrepreneurs, right in the heart of one of the world’s largest medical research facilities.”
The amenities building is Make’s sixth project for the University of Oxford and is the keystone to an overall masterplan for the site which was approved in 2013.
