Prime location for London research institute

With an eye-catching metal and glass façade, echoes in the masonry and distinctive roof of the iconic design at the adjacent St Pancras Station, a third of the structure – including facilities for highly sensitive electron microscopy – underground, and fresh air circulating around the building at 430 m3 second (‘the equivalent of emptying an Olympic swimming pool’s volume of air in under 10 seconds’), London’s new £650 m Francis Crick Institute building is no everyday structure. Here HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, explains the background to, challenges of, and criteria for its construction, focuses on some of the building’s most notable features, discusses the rationale behind the formation of the new research institute, and gives his own impressions of the impressive new facility following a recent visit.

.The first scientists moved into the new £650 m Francis Crick Institute building in London in mid-August last year, and by the time print and broadcast journalists were able to tour the facility and see the facilities during a ‘media day’ in early September, they had already begun their research work in their new home in earnest. Prominently located next to St Pancras Station and the British Library, ‘the Crick’ will be Europe’s biggest biomedical research institute under one roof once fully occupied. Research groups continued to move into the building each week on an ongoing basis in the latter half of 2016, and early this year, as laboratory space is adapted for each. The first few months of this year will see the Institute fully operational, with all 1,500 staff, including 1,250 scientists, safely moved in, and research projects ‘ramping up’. Research undertaken at ‘the Crick’ will aim ‘to discover how and why disease develops, the goals being to find new ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat, conditions such as cancer, heart disease and stroke, infections, and neurodegenerative conditions’.

Founders’ collaboration