Construction work has commenced on NUI Galway’s new Human Biology Building. The project cost will be in excess of €30m and is funded approximately one third by public exchequer funding including €7m as announced recently in Budget 2015, with the remaining two thirds funded from university sources. The project will help to sustain up to 200 construction jobs at its peak.
The Human Biology Building is a five-storey building plus roof level plant enclosure with a gross floor area of 8,200 sq m, located adjacent to the Áras na Mac Léinn and Áras Uí Chathail buildings. The building will house the existing University disciplines of anatomy, physiology and pharmacology and therapeutics.
The purpose of the building will be to provide a facility in which these disciplines will, within a research-led environment:
• Deliver core preclinical curricula to medical and health science students
• Deliver core curricula to science, biomedical science and engineering students
• Provide a venue for discipline specific training at third and fourth Level
The building has been designed as a teaching and research facility with accommodation including undergraduate teaching laboratories, research laboratories, offices, open plan write-up spaces, meeting rooms, tiered lecture theatres and other ancillary areas.
The site is a previously developed site on which stood the former National Diagnostics Centre. The construction contract has been awarded to BAM Building Ltd. with the construction period anticipated to be 19 months.
