RCP was engaged in detailed design to oversee the design quality review before procurement, then delivered management services through demolition, enabling works and the main contract, with senior specialists acting as engineer to the contract and engineer's representative and managing the University's specialist equipment installers. Building services coordination, commissioning and independent biological compliance peer reviews ran through every stage, drawing on international experts for design and specialist supply. Despite unforeseen ground conditions and COVID disruption to fitout and commissioning, the laboratory spaces reached Practical Completion 100 percent defect-free, and the building became the first of its kind to pass MPI accreditation at first inspection.
The University of Otago's new medical research and containment facility, replacing eight ageing buildings with one.
Eccles Building
University of OtagoThe Eccles Building lifts the University of Otago's research and teaching in human and veterinary medicine into a single 4,000 square metre facility, consolidating operations from eight outdated buildings to meet strict Ministry for Primary Industries accreditation and compliance. Across five storeys it holds 18 dedicated experimental rooms, an imaging suite with a bio-imager, multiphoton microscope and irradiation machine, and 88 bookable spaces for health and science researchers. Three floors are given over to sterile PC2 laboratories, alongside a pathogen-free barrier facility built and tested to PC3 pressure requirements. Built to an IL3 seismic rating, it can ride out a one-in-500-year earthquake and runs its own back-up generator, steam supply and four days of stored water and automatic feeding, with 28 air handling units and 3.2 kilometres of mechanical ducting behind the walls.
