Work has started on the development of a new brain research imaging centre at Cardiff University.
Following the successful completion of the university’s Hadyn Ellis Building, IBI Group’s design for this subsequent phase of the Maindy Road Campus masterplan has now started on site.
The £44m Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC) will be four times larger than the university’s existing facilities, meaning staff from different departments will benefit from being housed under one roof, allowing for increased collaboration and innovation.
The facility will contain MRI and Magnetoencephalography (MEG) scanning suites, laboratories, office accommodation and seminar facilities.
“IBI Group designed one of the first MEG facilities in the UK at the University of Oxford,” said Richard Golledge, architect and associate studio director at IBI Group.
“The practice has applied this knowledge and data from the ‘4 labs 4 cities’ research by its R&D team IBI THiNK to benchmark the CUBRIC building design against other leading international examples of science facilities.”
The CUBRIC project developed from an initial feasibility study by IBI Group’s Cardiff studio in January 2013 and achieved planning approval in August this year. Responding to the context in which it sits, the design will employ similar energy-efficient features at the Hadyn Ellis Building, which achieved a BREEAM Higher Education Award Wales for sustainable design.
Research at CUBRIC is focused on four inter-related research themes: imaging science; neuroscience; clinical research; and neuropsychiatric genetics and genomics. This research aims to have a direct impact on understanding human health and wellbeing, including the brain changes that lead to disordered cognition and mental health.
The facility is due to open in 2016.
