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Commercial2025

Osney Mead Innovation Quarter

Laboratory and office building on a science park in Oxford

Laboratory and office building for a science park operator, taken on a two-stage design and build contract.

Design and build services
Scaffolding and blockwork on a commercial site

Project facts

Client
Science park operator
Location
Osney Mead, Oxford
Contract type
Two-stage design and build
Contract value
£5.4m
Floor area
4,600 m²
Programme
64 weeks
Completed
September 2025

01 — The brief

Write labs into an office frame

The operator needed a building it could let as offices on day one and convert to wet laboratories a floor at a time, without knowing which tenants would want which.

That put the difficulty in the services rather than the structure. Drainage, extract and floor loadings all had to suit a lab that had not been designed yet, at a rent an office tenant would still pay.

02 — Delivery

Priced twice, built once

A two-stage contract let us price the frame and envelope while the fit-out was still being drawn, so the steel was ordered eleven weeks before the internal layouts were fixed.

Riser capacity, slab penetrations and plant weight were all set for the laboratory case and then value-engineered back where the office case allowed it. The mechanical subcontractor sat in the design meetings from stage one.

  • Steel ordered 11 weeks early
  • Lab-rated risers throughout
  • Slab designed for 5kN/m² plant
  • Fit-out drawn during stage one
  • Two floors handed over early
  • BREEAM Excellent achieved

03 — The outcome

Let before practical completion

FF Construction handed over the £5.4m, 4,600 m² Osney Mead Innovation Quarter in September 2025, with two of the four floors released early and both let before practical completion.

The building achieved BREEAM Excellent. The first laboratory conversion began four months later and needed no structural work.

Gallery

A frame built for two futures

  • Scaffolding and blockwork on a commercial site
    The steel frame, ordered before the internal layouts were fixed.
  • Completed brickwork and glazing on a finished building
    Risers sized for laboratory extract from the outset.
  • A brick commercial extension wrapped in scaffolding at dusk
    The completed south elevation on handover.

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