PLANNERS are being asked to approve detailed designs for Glasgow University’s new Institute of Health and Wellbeing, part of the £1billion campus it is developing at the former Western Infirmary site at Gilmorehill.

The Clarice Pears Building will allow staff from 10 different sites around the city to come together in a single multi-disciplinary research facility, due to be in use by the third quarter of 2021.

It is expected to cost in excess of £40 million and has been named after Glasgow-born Clarice Pears, mother of the three founders of the Pears Foundation, which donated £5 million towards its construction.

The building will be located at the junction of Byres Road and University Place with elevations also facing the campus’s new University Square and a new diagonal route from Byres Road to the square.

Academics at the centre will collaborate with multiple public agencies including the Scottish and UK Governments, NHS, local authorities and both the voluntary and private sectors, to create, develop and disseminate ground-breaking research on disease prevention, improving health and wellbeing and reducing health inequalities locally, nationally and globally.

The institute will be a base for nearly 500 academic and professional support staff, 300 doctoral and postgraduate students and 150 members of the public in its ground floor engagement and knowledge exchange areas.

A design statement submitted to Glasgow planning department explains: “The workplace environment of the proposed building is designed to reject spaces with fixed uses and functions; instead, the building’s five upper floors will deliver spaces which are flexible and which can accommodate multiple patterns of human interaction in line with the strategic goals of the Institute for Health and Wellbeing.”

Work started in October 2018 the first building at the new campus, the £113 million Research Hub.

Work underway at the Western Infirmary campus site in April