A very positive outcome to the completed first stage of the University of Otago Science Precinct. A team effort from Parker Warburton Team Architects and Lab-works Architecture.
The University of Otago’s chemistry labs have gone from antique to high-tech and tertiary education reporter Vaughan Elder was this week given a tour of the Mellor Laboratories building after the completion of the first half of a $56million makeover.
Mellor Laboratories is a hive of activity. A class full of bright young minds — many in the first gruelling year of health sciences — are experiencing their first chemistry lab.
The lab glistens in bright white, matching the first year students’ fresh lab coats.
Chemistry department head Prof Lyall Hanton was full of enthusiasm about how the old grey building had transformed into probably the best university lab in New Zealand.
"I didn’t know that they could turn this ugly old building into this real swan.
"Everyone associated with the project, from Property Services, the architects [Parker Warburton Team Architects with Lab-Works Architecture], and Leigh’s Construction and their subcontractors have been wonderful to work with and they have all done a marvellous job to complete on time," Prof Hanton said.
The just-completed half of the building, named after Joseph William Mellor, features a flexible ‘‘super-lab’’ for 112 students, which can be divided in two, iPads at each lab station and the latest scientific equipment.
