Lancaster University celebrates the final stage of construction to the roof of its prestigious new Engineering 2 building, a 2,900 square metre specialist facility in the heart of campus.

Delegates from Lancaster University, John Turner Construction Group and Identity Consult gathered to celebrate the official ‘topping out’ of Lancaster University’s new Engineering 2 building, a significant milestone in the construction journey. With the roof now substantially complete, interior works can continue at pace to ensure that the new purpose built 2,900 square metre space will be completed ahead of its official opening at the end of summer 2023.

Building the future of Engineering

The Engineering 2 building will feature three floors of teaching spaces and includes a ground floor research-rig hall, an electron microscope suite with dedicated material preparation laboratory, chemical, hydrogen and bioengineering laboratories, a flexible engineering design laboratory, a student-led maker space, and an 80-seat lecture theatre which will also serve as an outreach event space.

The new facility is situated adjacent to the existing Engineering 1 building, a RIBA award-winning space built in 2015, and together will form the prestigious new School of Engineering capable of attracting an increasingly diverse cohort of students and new expert staff to support teaching and research at a global level.

Professor Sarah Green, Head of Engineering at Lancaster University, said; “it’s great to see first first-hand how an interdisciplinary team have worked together to realise this project. The new engineering building offers contemporary teaching, research and laboratory spaces, and it will be the place where engineering is seen, experienced and explained”.

An accessible and sustainable bespoke space

The new building is a fully accessible facility, constructed to the highest safety standards and features hearing loops, adjustable furniture layouts and accessible toilet facilities throughout the building, accessible by lift. The building has been constructed on a brown field site, the location of the old sports hall, and the Project also includes repurposing existing space within the Science and Technology building to reduce the amount of new building and therefore the carbon emissions generated by construction works.

As the external brickwork and glazing is approaching completion, works will now progress to the building’s interior in anticipation of the late summer 2023 completion date.