New Nucleus Building Opens

The Nucleus will enhance our practical work with bespoke facilities. Students will enjoy labs that are bigger, brighter and better, with stunning views across the city. The larger space means that we will have more capacity to train students of chemistry, biology, and biomedical sciences in practical chemistry.

The new building will give us flexible teaching spaces, meaning that we will no longer be restricted by front-facing lecture theatres. These new spaces enable us to reimagine and diversify the types of teaching and workshops which we deliver as part of both our School of Chemistry programmes and community outreach. As an integrated single-site for STEM teaching, it will also allow us to host first-year students on a single campus for all of their chemistry classes, traditionally split between George Square and the King’s Buildings.

We are excited about the potential for these fantastic new facilities to enhance teaching and learning at the School of Chemistry.

 

These new labs are much greener than our older Chemistry Teaching labs, due to the modern building environmental management systems (BEMS) designed to take account of (a) today’s modern safety requirements and (b) the University’s commitment to greener buildings with smaller carbon footprints.

The University’s Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability has worked closely with the School of Chemistry to seamlessly marry these two requirements. Post-consultation, they have designed ventilation systems which provide the required number of air changes, keeping the labs well-ventilated and safe, whilst also using the minimum amount of power. The new fume hoods (over 50 units) have been designed to automatically detect when not in use, entering a standby mode to again minimise power consumption.

Combined with the low energy LED lighting systems, these labs are by far the most energy efficient lab spaces we have ever been able to provide to our students.