Plans in for £235m Sir Henry Royce Institute

A planning application has been submitted for the £235m Sir Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials in Manchester, but details remain light on the designs by NBBJ Architects.

The 170,000 sq ft building is being built by the University of Manchester on a plot off Booth Street, between the Alan Turing Building on Upper Brook Street and the Aquatic Centre on Oxford Road.

NBBJ is also the architect behind the new Royal Liverpool University Hospital currently under construction

Plans and funding for the institute were first announced by then Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in 2014. The institute will have its research centre in Manchester, supported by satellite centres or ‘spokes’ at other founding partners, made up of the universities of Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College London.

University of Manchester’s design team for the building is NBBJ Architects, Arcadis, Arup and Ramboll.

The facility will be one of three in Manchester focused on research into the practical implications of graphene. The £61m National Graphene Institute opened in 2015, while planning permission was granted earlier this year to the £60m Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre at the university’s North campus, designed by Rafael Vinoly.

The University of Manchester has previously said that it is targeting a completion date for the Sir Henry Royce building of 2019.