Scott Brownrigg laboratory designs for Cambridge Technology Park win planning approval

Above: CGI of proposed designs for new landscaped areas and lab / office space at the Cambridge Technology Park (Scott Brownrigg for BioMed Realty)

Scott Brownrigg’s design for over 600,000 square feet of speculative office and laboratory buildings for BioMed Realty has received planning approval.

The 15- acre site at Fulbourn Road Cambridge will provide 600,000-net-square-feet of laboratory and office space, aimed at life sciences, biotechnology and more traditional office occupiers. To be known as Cambridge International Technology Park, the buildings will be capable of being occupied by a variety of users for multi or single occupation.

With a highly sustainable and environment focused approach, the Park will provide flexible space suitable for a range of end user needs, particularly important given the diverse range of target occupiers in the Cambridge market.

The Campus is centered around a new approach to outdoor collaborative workspace; a series of landscaped terraces, platforms and gardens are designed to be fully accessible to all. Anticipating the benefits of 5G and mobile technology this new outdoor workspace incudes protective covered areas to encourage people to work wherever they like, bringing the indoors out. Combined with highly sustainable, energy efficient buildings with a flexible office and laboratory use, the Cambridge International Technology Park will be an exemplar Science Hub in Southern Cambridge. Reinforcing the region’s status as a world leading center for research and development.

The project represents a major investment by Biomed Realty in the Cambridge office market where demand, especially for life sciences, biotechnology and other more traditional office users remains high.

Director, Ed Hayden said:

“Creating this new park is a really exciting opportunity to build upon the successful history of the technology in Cambridge, and we are really thrilled to be designing the next generation of sustainable workplaces to support the growth of world leading creativity in Cambridge”.

At our recent Oxford 'Science Cities' forum Orestis Tzortzoglou, Development Director of BioMed Realty (which owns and manages 2 million square feet of science R&D space across the USA, Europe and UK including 158 acres around the city of Cambridge), commented:

'We are very interested in Oxford and have seen the city become much more successful in the last few years, and it has a lot of common themes with Cambridge - housing need, and congestion in the city centre, for instance. There are certainly lessons to be learned from other international markets, and also from the development of Cambridge which really took off with Trinity College's Cambridge Science Park in the 1970s. We are looking at the inner city - out of city dynamic and where these different approaches to science R&D spaces might become complementary. There are advantages to working with beautiful park-like settings with the lower rise, flexible spaces that are possible outside the city. but I think the city centre becomes more challenging with the mix of student use, residential and retail - so it is interesting how this co-existence with science R&D can be developed.

Future Cities Forum will be holding its next 'Science Cities' event in Cambridge in February 2023.