A major new building development has been completed in St Andrews by project management and construction company, Bovis Lend Lease.

In a key location within the University of St Andrews' North Haugh Campus, The new School of Medicine building comprises 10,900m2 of world-class medical and science facilities over four floors.

The £32 million building project, which is linked to the university’s Department of Physics and Astronomy via a first floor bridge, contains a lecture theatre for 300 people, teaching rooms, laboratories, research units, offices, support areas, roof-top plant facilities plus shell and core expansion space.

The site covers an area of around 5,000m2 including landscaping and is situated in front of the existing Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Computer Science Buildings.

The building, designed by award-winning Edinburgh-based architects Reiach & Hall, will be fitted out by the university over the next few months and will admit its first medical students in September 2010.

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In total, the project represents an investment of £45 million and is the biggest and most ambitious the university has ever undertaken.

The new School of Medicine will aim to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration with the university's top rated science faculty, acknowledging the growing international consensus that the most significant advances in medical and biomedical research will result from unrestricted collaboration between medicine and the sciences.

The St Andrews development will be one of the first UK medical schools where research facilities are fully integrated with other sciences and key university disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology and psychology, offering an important new dimension to medical research and the training of new doctors.

Gordon Anderson, head of Bovis Lend Lease Scotland, said: "We are delighted to handover the new School of Medicine to the University of St Andrews on schedule. We have remained committed since the start of the project to deliver on schedule and within budget.

"Constructed and fitted out to a world-class standard, this new building has been designed to deliver the very best accommodation for teaching, research and administration. It will be a fantastic addition to the university’s existing offering and will stand out in Scotland as a hub of academic excellence."

He continued: "As a UK leader in building high-spec premises for educational institutions, Bovis Lend Lease knows all too well how important it is to ensure that academic life continues as normal during the construction phase.

"With this in mind, we established our main contractor's compound in an area of common parkland within walking distance of the University of St Andrews site, operating satellite facilities which helped to ensure that students were not disturbed during term-time and in particular during the exam period."

(GK/BMcC)