Why a new building?

The Tinbergen Building

In 2016, a planning application for the Chemistry Teaching Laboratories (CTL), as an extension to the Tinbergen Building, was approved as part of a wider planning permission for refurbishment and alterations.

It was during these refurbishment works, in February 2017, that the University had to reluctantly, at short notice, close the Tinbergen Building due to the discovery of asbestos-containing materials throughout the structure and in inaccessible areas. It was impossible to remove this while the building was occupied.

Until its sudden closure, the Tinbergen Building had been the main location of the Departments of Experimental Psychology (EP) and Zoology for almost 50 years. It accommodated nearly 2,000 academic staff, postgraduate students, undergraduates and administrative staff. As a medium-term solution, modular buildings were erected at the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter site on Walton Street and at the University Club Sports Ground behind the Tinbergen Building. It soon became apparent that a new, permanent home for the departments would be essential to enabling them to continue to operate as world-class centres of research and teaching, and to protect their long-term future. The departments have been housed in temporary facilities ever since, and will remain so until the opening of the Life and Mind Building in 2025.

The New Life and Mind Building

Following its closure, a ‘Tinbergen Long-term Solution Working Group’ considered the future of the Tinbergen Building. Following a detailed consultation process and appraisal of available options, it was decided that demolition and replacement of the building would deliver better value for the University than an attempt to refurbish the existing building frame. In return for a small cost premium, a new-build would deliver materially greater benefits in terms of the quality, functionality and flexibility of the resulting space – which could be purpose-designed for 21st-century science and, crucially, built completely free of asbestos.

The concept of a new Life and Mind Building emerged and work got underway before the end of 2019. The building is set to transform the relationship between the biological and psychological sciences. It will provide innovative facilities for teaching and research that will enable Oxford to train a new generation of scientists, who will be equipped to help us address critical global challenges.