Our Projects

Situated on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, adjacent to the new Royal Papworth Hospital (RPH), Project Atria contains 8,000m2 of research space; accommodating a Clinical Research Facility and Education Suite on the ground floor, with Wet and Dry Research Laboratories located on the first and second floors, together with a roof mounted plant room and external plant behind an elevated parapet.

The building is linked to the RPH via a basement tunnel, and provides a 10-bed clinical research facility, along with state-of-the-art laboratory space for 22 principal investigators and 250 researchers.

A key Client requirement was to remove the reliance on natural gas serving the major plant for the facility. As part of the early design workshops, Munro worked with SDC and the Client's design team to challenge the removal of gas and the incorporation of Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHPs) to provide the low temperature hot water heating services.

During the pre-construction period, it was agreed to retain minimal gas services to secondary boilers, however the major plant servicing the facility was designed to use ASHPs which improved the energy efficiency of the building services. Munro incorporated this into the design and have successfully commissioned the facility.

The centre comprises of state-of-the-art facilities including:

• Research laboratories for cell, molecular and translational research.
• The relocated Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit.
• Genetics and functional genomics groups.
• High throughput Omics laboratories and tissue banking.
• A platelet laboratory.

A large success factor of the project was Munro's ability to incorporate significant change into the scheme, without impacting the construction programme. The project was delivered early despite the Covid-19 Pandemic; this was achieved through collaboration with SDC and the Client team to operate on a shift pattern, minimising operatives on site whilst maximising working efficiency.