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Harwell wins award for best commercial development

The 48,000 sq. ft Zeus development at the UK’s leading science and innovation campus, has secured the title of Best Commercial Development at this year’s OxPROP FEST Awards.

Suitable for light engineering, R&D, laboratory, assembly, cleanrooms and offices, the speculative development was built to meet the rapidly growing science and technology requirement across Oxfordshire.

The design of Zeus was conceived as a result of an architectural competition, run by Bidwells, with Allies and Morrison, delivering a successful design consisting of a steel portal frame timber and weathering steel cladding. Judges praised the development for its strong connectivity with the landscaping, and environment, designed specifically to fit around the historic mature trees already on the plot.

Stuart Grant CEO of Harwell Campus said: “We’re delighted that the Zeus development on Campus has been named as best commercial development, selected from a high calibre of entries from across Oxfordshire. The award is testament to the hard work of the delivery teams, from agents, architects and structural engineers who helped to realise the vision for the build.

“Zeus has set a new benchmark for building design on the campus, delivering high quality, flexible accommodation that is tailored to our occupier needs across a number of scientific sectors”.

David Jobbins, project manager at Bidwells, said: “Zeus is a real a one-of-a-kind project and it was an honour to be involved from such an early stage. The design set the standard for what is to come at the Harwell Campus and we worked tirelessly to get every single detail right. It’s a great achievement for the whole team to win this award.”

The news of the award comes just a few days after leading biopharmaceutical company Vaccitech, became the first tenants of Zeus, taking over 31,000sq. ft.

The development is part of a five million sq. ft masterplan that accommodates leading companies and institutions from life sciences, space, energy and quantum computing. One and a half million sq. ft will be built by mid-2020s with a current phase of labs, R&D, manufacturing, and offices being delivered this year.

Industrial, science and office development activity across the whole of Oxfordshire has remained strong throughout the pandemic. The award for best commercial development encourages submissions that demonstrate buildings that have matched the brief and are part of the Local Plan to generate new income for Oxfordshire.