Capita project manager on ‘quietest building in the world’

Consultant Capita Symonds has provided project management services for the newly opened Bristol University’s Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information.

Hailed as the quietest building in the world, the £11m project provides state-of-the-art specialised laboratories where vibration and acoustic noise levels are among the lowest ever achieved, despite being located in Bristol city centre.

The scheme was designed by the firm's architecture division Capita Architecture and built by Wilmott Dixon Construction.

The centre, which contains an anechoic chamber, two cleanrooms and wet, optical and low-vibration laboratories, will offer opportunities for the development of future computing, communications and health technologies, as well as advanced materials such as those used in the aerospace industry.

The basement houses the ‘low noise’ area with a suite of ultra-low vibration nanoscience laboratories which are anchored to the rock below.

The building also benefits from access to techniques and imaging equipment, much of which has been developed in-house, which allow researchers to observe, understand, manipulate and characterise nanostructures and reactions, both chemical and biological, and to develop new synthesised materials.