The system responds automatically to rises and falls in demand for heating depending on the building’s occupancy. The labs’ centrepiece is the building’s intelligent ventilation system. This has meant a cultural change that has not only seen the labs designed around greater sharing of resources like fume cupboards, but also a desire by incoming research groups to, for instance, cut the use of rare earth metals and avoid chlorinated solvents whenever possible. David Chambers-Asman, head of operations and administration at Nottingham’s faculty of science, says that they have had a rethink of the way labs run day-to-day. The new building benefits from a number of features specifically designed to cut the labs’ waste, energy and water use. This is possible thanks to a 1150m 2 photovoltaic array and a biomass fuelled heat and power system that supplies the labs with all the power they need, as well as supplying neighbouring buildings. After 25 years of operation the labs will have offset the carbon emissions discharged during their construction. To cut the building’s carbon footprint it was constructed with a timber frame using 100 spruce trees and built around carbon neutral principles. A further £4 million was provided by the University of Nottingham and £750,000 from arts and sciences charity the Wolfson Foundation. The funding to construct the new labs was finalised in 2013, with the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) providing £10.5 million, which was matched by £12 million from UK pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The now complete £27 million building has been built on a brownfield site that was formerly the site of bicycle makers Raleigh. The exact cause of the fire was never determined but Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue ruled out arson and said an electrical fault was the most likely cause. ![]() The fire of 2014 completely destroyed Nottingham’s GSK Carbon Neutral Laboratories for Sustainable Chemistry, which was over two-thirds complete when disaster struck. The new labs, which officially opened last week, will be carbon neutral and feature innovative technology to cut energy and water consumption that will pay back the energy invested to build them within 25 years. The original building slated for completion in mid-2015 burnt down in September 2014. The new sustainable chemistry labs of the University of Nottingham have risen phoenix-like from the ashes.
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