Award win recognises excellence in life sciences design.

The accolade was announced during the awards dinner following the conference, recognising the project’s exceptional architectural, technical and collaborative achievements.

This recognition celebrates not just the quality of the campus’s built environment, but the collective vision that drove its development—a vision that prioritises innovation, adaptability, and integration within the natural landscape.

A campus designed for innovation.

The project, officially titled Birchwood Laboratories, comprises a new, masterplanned science and technology campus for operator TTP. Designed by Sheppard Robson, the campus introduces three distinctive low-rise buildings – The Hive, The Forum and The Tech Barn – each tailored to support a different function in research, fabrication and collaboration.

• The Hive features a mix of flexible workspaces and laboratories unified by a 15-metre modular grid.

• The Forum acts as a central convening point with a theatre and presentation space, distinguished by a sculptural arch and sunken landscaped setting.

• The Tech Barn delivers expansive laboratory, fabrication and storage space through a central-column portal frame system, also accommodating a mezzanine.

AKT II provided full structural and civil-infrastructure services, playing a key role in harmonising the built environment with its greenfield setting. This included ‘cut and fill’ calculations to reduce exported material and a comprehensive sustainable drainage system (SuDS) that complements the site’s naturalised landscaping.

Celebrating collective excellence.

This award stands as a testament to the seamless integration of design, engineering and environmental stewardship, as well as to the exceptional teamwork behind the project. It affirms the campus not merely as a workplace, but as a vibrant ecosystem for discovery and collaboration in the life sciences sector.

Congratulations to everyone involved in bringing this vision to life.