17 October 2024
Construction will now start on major new development.
By Aine Allardyce
The University of Glasgow will construct a major new learning, teaching and research building in the West End of Glasgow, on its historic Gilmorehill campus.
Construction of the Keystone building is due to commence this month, with completion scheduled for the 2028/29 academic year. The development is projected to cost £300million.
The Keystone building is the fifth major building to be constructed through the University of Glasgow’s £1.3 billion Campus Development Programme. It will be a world-class facility dedicated to learning, teaching, and research, and accommodate around 3,600 students.
The new development will span a total of 27,000 square metres, making it the second largest building on the University’s campus by size, after the Gilbert Scott Building.
Designed by HOK architects and constructed by the University’s principal contractor, Multiplex, the building will serve as a hub for students of all disciplines and offer a mix of general teaching spaces, technical facilities, collaborative areas and a café.
Alongside general learning and teaching areas, the Keystone building will house a range of dry and wet lab spaces, as well as high-spec computing labs. It will also provide a maker’s workshop and general teaching facilities for the University of Glasgow’s James Watt School of Engineering.
The Keystone will be the University’s most sustainable building, aiming to achieve ‘BREEAM Excellent’ certification, along with ambitious energy use targets.
Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, left, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow said: “The Keystone building is the exciting next step in our Campus Development Programme, which is transforming our campus and the student experience at the University of Glasgow.
“This is a hugely significant investment for our community, providing state of the art learning and teaching facilities for over 3,600 students, which will allow us to continue to attract the brightest and best students and staff to Glasgow. In addition, it will deliver a range of specialist equipment and spaces to support our world-leading education in Engineering and Biomedical sciences.
This investment in Keystone also signifies the University’s continued commitment to being a civic institution for Glasgow, creating vibrant new spaces which will be of benefit to not only our own students, but also to our local community.”
Gary Clark, HOK’s regional principal of Science +Technology, said: “The Keystone represents the future of interdisciplinary science and teaching with advanced research labs, teaching ‘super labs’ and the latest in sustainable design.
“Once open, it will be one of the largest net-zero-carbon university buildings in the UK, and one of the most welcoming, with neuro-inclusive workspaces embedded throughout.
“The building complements the historic architecture of the University of Glasgow through the use of stone, brick and terracotta while its dramatic responsive façade design, inspired by Victorian architecture, reveals the art of the possible in terms of both scientific learning and net-zero development.”
This is good news. Good news for Glasgow, good news for the economy, good news for international relations. Education, education, education is an absolute key.
And yet there are many knuckle draggers here in Scotland who eschew education, who carp too many foreigners. You hear it not just from the numpties but from some of their equally numpty knuckle dragging yahoo politicians.
As cousin of their knuckle dragging kin down south who voted for Brexit because of their hatred for foreigners and Europe we now have the situation where post Brexit, Britain’s economy has been crippled. The extract below reports on just how Britain has been crippled –
“The City of London, the historical financial district within the British capital, has lost around 40,000 jobs since the country left the European Union in 2016, the local mayor has told Reuters. Michael Mainelli described Brexit as a “disaster.”
British voters opted to leave the EU by a narrow margin of 52% to 48% back in 2016, and the divorce was finalized in January 2020.
In February, Bloomberg – citing economists from Goldman Sachs – estimated that the departure had cost the UK about 5% of real GDP compared to its economic peers. According to the article, Brexit’s legacy has been a slow economy and a soaring cost of living, due to reduced trade and the loss of business investment.
In an article on Wednesday, Reuters quoted Marinelli as saying: “We had 525,000 workers in 2016. My estimate is that we lost just short of 40,000.”
The mayor of the City of London – which is a geographically small part of Greater London but a leading global financial hub – added that rivals Dublin, Milan, Paris and Amsterdam have gained the most from the exodus of financial institutions from the UK ”
“Britain’s departure from the bloc appears to have adversely affected not only the City, but the country’s economy at large. In July, the newly appointed Labour chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, claimed that the UK was in its worst shape economically since the Second World War. ”
So whilst we should welcome Glasgow University’s attempts to expand the university to make it an international Scottish centre of worldwide excellence we should recognise that it does so with one arm tied behind its back through a belligerent Britain committing economic impoverishment.
And impoverishment it is a taxes rise, economic output plummets and we all get poorer. But hey, the Scottish government tell us it is all the SNP’s fault. Ah well no doubt it will all get better when we cut heating allowance, introduce tuition fees, introduce HNS fast track privatisation and means test entitlement to state pensions.