Keystone Building will serve as a hub for students of all disciplines and offer a mix of general teaching spaces, labs, collaborative areas and a café.
The University of Glasgow will construct a major new learning, teaching and research building in the West End of Glasgow, on its historic Gilmorehill campus.
Construction of the Keystone Building is scheduled to begin this month, with completion targeted for the 2028-2029 academic year. The 27,000-sq.-m. (290,000-sq.-ft.) building will accommodate around 3,600 students and is projected to cost £300 million ($389 million).
The Keystone is the fifth major building to be constructed through the University of Glasgow’s £1.3 billion Campus Development Programme. It will be the second-largest building on the University’s campus by size, after the Gilbert Scott Building.
Designed by HOK and constructed by the University of Glasgow’s principal contractor, Multiplex, the building will serve as a hub for students of all disciplines and offer a mix of general teaching spaces, technical facilities, collaborative areas and a café. The building will include a range of dry and wet lab spaces and high-tech computing labs. It will also feature a maker’s workshop and general teaching facilities for the University of Glasgow’s James Watt School of Engineering.
The Keystone will be University of Glasgow’s most sustainable building, aiming to achieve ‘BREEAM Excellent’ certification along with ambitious energy use targets.
Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, University of Glasgow principal and vice-chancellor, said: “The Keystone Building is an exciting next step in our Campus Development Programme. This is a hugely significant investment for our community, providing state-of-the-art learning and teaching facilities that will attract the brightest and best students and staff to Glasgow. It will deliver a range of specialist equipment and spaces to support our world-leading education in engineering and biomedical sciences. The Keystone Building also signifies the University’s commitment to being a civic institution for Glasgow, creating vibrant new spaces that will be of benefit to not only our students, but also our local community.”
Gary Clark, regional leader of HOK’s Science +Technology practice in the UK, noted that the Keystone Building will be one of the largest net-zero-carbon university buildings in the UK and one of the most welcoming, with neuroinclusive workspaces embedded throughout.
“The Keystone represents the future of interdisciplinary science and teaching with advanced research labs, teaching ‘super labs’ and the latest in sustainable design,” said Clark. “The building complements the historic architecture of the University of Glasgow through the use of stone, brick and terracotta while its dramatic and responsive facade design—inspired by Victorian architecture—reveals the art of the possible in terms of both scientific learning and net-zero development.”