Blog

Super Lab – Newcastle University

Newcastle University Medical School recently approached Ambic with a unique challenge. In their Leech Building, they previously had two separate laboratories with a preparation room in between. Due to the need to increase the number of students that could be taught at any one time, they needed a teaching space large enough to cater for up to 200 students at the same time. Also important was the ability to be able to rearrange labortory desks and seating to increase seating capacity, create open spaces, cater for additional temporary IT equipment and any combination of the above. The nature of the various lesson formats meant that students may be required to engage in practical, computer and wet work so the laboratory needed the ability to be able to meet these demands.

In addition , each desk group of workstation would need to be supplied with power and data services, allowing a non-skilled installer or lab techician to be able to connect up the relevant services once the laboratory had been reconfigured.

The laboratory desks have been manufactured from hard wearing solid grade laminate Trespa® TopLab®Base . This is perfect for high moisture environments where frequent cleaning will take place. It also has excellent hard wearing, impact resistance qualities so continues to look good many years down the line.

The desks were made with fixable castors that can be locked in place once the desk is in position. This allows for quick and easy movement and regrouping of the desks depending on the lesson fomat. Similarly, IT solutions were also creacted in the form of a mobile unit with pull out sliding tray for a computer keyboard. These can be moved into place alongside the standard lab desks and are complemented by additional storage in the form of mobile drawer units.

Power and data supply can be added to each desk group no matter the location due wall and ceiling static services modules that can be connected either under the desk or via integrated cable columns.

The ability to divide the room back into separate learning spaces is facilitated by an automatic folding room divider provided by a third party supplier.

Newcastle University can now rightly showcase their place as one of the Russell Group top universities with one of the largest teaching laboratories on campus.

For more information on how Ambic can help with your next laboratory project , give us a call on Tel 0191 389 1888 to arrange a no-obligation free consultation.