A New Bioscience Hub for King’s Buildings Campus
BMJ Architects has designed New Darwin, a proposed new bioscience building for the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh’s King’s Buildings Campus.
Concept and Strategy
The project will replace the existing Darwin Tower with a lower-height building of a more appropriate scale, responding to the surrounding campus, landscape and city context. The development is intended to deliver a significant visual and environmental improvement to this part of the University estate.
New Darwin will create a new front door and focal point for the School of Biological Sciences. Through physical connections to existing buildings, the project will help transform this corner of the campus into a modern bioscience hub.
Designed for Collaboration and Discovery
The building is designed to bring together diverse research and teaching communities, supporting both formal and informal connections across the School. This collaborative environment reflects the University’s vision for interdisciplinary biology and will support the translation of scientific discovery into 21st-century solutions for global challenges.
Sustainability is central to the project’s ambition. New Darwin is targeting Net Zero Carbon enabled performance, with goals including Sustainable Labs, life cycle analysis and post-occupancy monitoring, including operational laboratory energy use.
“It has been exciting to work with BMJ Architects to co-create this inspirational space. Designed to bring together diverse communities, it will foster the formal and informal connections that lead to the ground-breaking interdisciplinary research and teaching for which the School of Biological Sciences is celebrated.”
Head of School, University of Edinburgh
