Queen Elizabeth University Hospital – Laboratory Medicine

Covering an area larger than a premiership football pitch, the building comprises over 28,000m2 of accommodation that is critically designed around the absolute needs of the end user and diagnostic sample processing.

Now fully operational, the facility houses over 800 scientists, clinicians and consultants, and is able to process and screen over 12.5 million blood samples a year in just one area of the building.

The building has been designed in close collaboration with the NHS GG&C, Glasgow City Council, Strathclyde Police and Architecture & Design Scotland.

The office pod features a striking curved design with a green copper exterior and vertical panels of glass. The glass both gives a bold design statement and gives a feeling of transparency to reduce the private and highly technical nature of the building.

The new building contains highly specialist facilities while maintaining highly sustainable credentials, incorporating environmental features such as an exposed cast concrete superstructure that absorbs warmth during the daytime and keeps internal temperatures controlled at night.

Other features include robotic systems that ferry goods and clinical stores from the national distribution centre on the ground floor to the new hospital via a network of underground tunnels.

The project achieved BREEAM Excellent and won a GIA Healthcare Design Award.