Mace has been named the main contractor on the £50m building contract to develop the high-profile Big Data institute at the University of Oxford’s Old Road Campus, beating the likes of Wates and BAM Construction to the job.
Designed by Make Architects, the Big Data Institute will store, analyse and process high volumes of health-related digital data for 552 staff with the aim of providing new insights into the prevention and treatment of diseases worldwide.
The building is part of a decade-long, wider capital masterplan which the university began implementing earlier this year.
The Institute will be the fifth building Make has designed for the University of Oxford. They recently completed two laboratories on site - the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology and the NDM Research Building, as well as 2011’s Oxford Molecular Pathology Institute and 2007’s Old Road Campus research building.
Make Partner and Lead Project Architect, Justin Nicholls, said of the design: “Internally, the innovative open-plan spaces, lecture theatres and large expressed high-powered computing hall are gathered around a grand reading space forming the ultimate heart of the building.
“A veil of horizontal aluminium bands forms the basis of the main façade design, ensuring the building reads as a sibling to the adjacent NDM research building.”