ISG has secured the £61 million contract for the fit out of the new home of Imperial College London’s world renowned Department of Chemistry on its White City Campus.

The scheme will see ISG return to the Imperial’s new 10 hectare campus in West London, after completing the £40 million Wood Lane Studios postgraduate student accommodation scheme four years ago.

The Department of Chemistry will occupy the campus’ new Molecular Sciences Research Hub, a 10 storey, 25,000 m2 structure, which is being built by Laing O’Rourke.

ISG has been developing the design and programme for the fit out over a year pre-construction period and will work with Turner & Townsend, the college’s project manager.

The contractor is putting in chemistry laboratories across floors one to six, with 337 fume cupboards, while the two basement levels of the building will be home to a 250 seat lecture theatre and a specialist laboratory space.

In the basement, structural reinforcement is needed to allow ISG to install an advanced Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) suite, along with a suite of laser and low electric noise laboratories also to be fitted in the basement.

Managing Director of ISG’s Engineering Services business, Danny Blakeston, commented: “Our return to the White City Campus to deliver a key element of Imperial’s research and innovation vision reinforces our strong working relationship and specialist credentials in the technical fit out arena.

“Our early engagement reflects Imperial’s forward thinking approach on this highly-complex and large-scale project, enabling us to collaborate closely and develop an innovative fit out solution that delivers world-class teaching and research facilities.”

Professor Alan Armstrong, Head of the Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London commented that the Molecular Sciences Research Hub would be ‘a truly world-class facility’ once it was completed.

Armstrong added that the move to the White City Campus will drive a new approach to science.