As lead consultant, Tetra Tech inputted multidisciplinary services towards the design of the High Containment Bioscience Hub at the former Astra Zenica site in Harlow. This new build forms part of the wider site regeneration of the UK Bioscience Hub.
photos courtesy of AECOM
Public Health England’s new £238m Bioscience Hub is key to combining excellent public health skills with modern facilities and ways of working.
To support its long-term scientific and research development programme, Tetra Tech is lending its engineering and architectural services to the PHE Science Hub Programme. This ambitious scheme involves multi-million-pound refurbishment and new build schemes to replace aging building stock and facilities, while providing resilient and flexible accommodation for future requirements.
The Science Hub Programme feeds into one overarching goal: protect the UK population from infectious disease threats. For this to happen, the hub needs to facilitate research that translates into effective interventions (diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines, and working practices) that enhance the UK’s capability and reputation for excellence in protecting health.
Achieving this vision makes successful project delivery critical, even more so for high containment and in-vivo and in-vitro research facilities.
The primary project currently in design involves a CL4/CL3/BS laboratory and support accommodation within a highly secure environment.
Work Performed and Solution
Tetra Tech’s team has provided a multidisciplinary suite of service to assist this project, including civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, and architecture. Through interactive workshops and extensive engagement with specialist stakeholders, these experts have agreed on bespoke user requirements and building concepts.
Critical M&E systems will incorporate high levels of resilience. Components that could be reasonably expected to fail in service or go out of commission for maintenance will be duplicated. In exceptional circumstances, the facility will even be able to operate independently of incoming infrastructure for a limited period, should these cease to be available.
The CL4 facility will be the largest in Europe, utilizing full body bio-containment suits as well as microbiological safety cabinets.
“We are proud to have provided design leadership and expertise in the stakeholder engagement process,” said Lee Brooks, Director, Tetra Tech. “Once complete, the project will provide a highly specialized facility capable of flexible use that accommodates a wide range of scientific research programmes – from coordinated disease control to specialist epidemiology, information and intelligence, microbiology, and more.”
