Supporting the construction of Europe's largest research facility
The Francis Crick Institute is a world-class biomedical research facility on a 3.6 acre brownfield site opposite King’s Cross St Pancras in central London.
Key information
- Location:
- UK
- Date started:
- 1
- Completion date:
- Ongoing
- Client type:
- 3.6 acre brownfield site
- 90,000m2 laboratory space
- 1,250 researchers
The institute's work is helping to understand why disease develops and to find new ways to treat, diagnose and prevent illnesses. Its objective is to enable and promote cross-disciplinary science, bringing six major scientific research organisations together.
The laboratories are unique, accommodating 1,250 researchers in multidisciplinary work stations that encourage ongoing collaboration. With 1,553 rooms, the research facility is the largest in Europe.
Turner & Townsend has supported the Institute to maximise the development potential of the site and carefully control project costs within budget, successfully managing the costs through the numerous planning, technical, third party interfaces, and macroeconomic challenges.
This included interrogation and exchange of the design consultant’s and contractor’s building information modelling (BIM).
Making the difference
- Value engineering: deploying best-practice value engineering techniques to deliver overall savings of more than £25m.
- Informed procurement: establishing a sophisticated two-stage procurement process and using BIM to ensure best-buy on contractors’ bills, reducing some contractor costs by up to 25 percent.
- Supporting evolving design: maximising project agility using innovative cost modelling, feasibility analysis and procurement solutions to give the Institute flexibility on design decisions without incurring additional costs.
