New Napier campus is a glass apart

PLANS for a major expansion of Edinburgh Napier University, including a glass atrium, have been unveiled as part of the latest stage of a £100 million investment project.

The Sighthill campus, which is currently undergoing full-scale redevelopment, has seen two new buildings added to the site and the existing eight- storey teaching block updated.

The first images of the stunning four-storey glass atrium, which will serve as the centrepiece of the university's campus, have been revealed as workers prepare to furnish the interior.

The university had the atrium specially designed to provide natural light and heating and cut down on energy waste.

Students will be able to access the facility, which also includes a new sports centre and biomechanics lab, through the main atrium.

The site also includes a five-storey Learning Resource Centre with a double-height panoramic deck on the top floor looking east over the city.

Staff will begin to move into the complex from October and students will get their first peek of the new interior in January.

Classes will be held in three new lecture theatres, as well as in 50 teaching rooms, including drug design laboratories and research units.

The facility, which will be comprised of the existing block and a new building on either side of the central atrium building, will house the Faculty of Health, Life and Social Sciences, which has about 4500 students.

Professor Jenny Rees, vice principal of Edinburgh Napier University, said: "The new campus will give current and future students the very best learning experience in health, life sciences and sport science.

"These students had previously been dispersed across different campuses, but will soon be able to enjoy the latest library and IT equipment, laboratories and lecture theatres.

"As well as being an inspirational place to work and study, the building will have all the facilities students need to hit the ground running once they enter the world of work. This is even more important in the current economic climate."

The redevelopment of Sighthill campus, part of a wider attempt to regenerate the area, began in 2008 and has brought about 100 jobs to the area.

Edinburgh Napier hopes that the impressive new campus, alongside Craiglockhart, which was redeveloped in 2004, and its Grade A-listed Victorian site at Craighouse, will continue to attract huge numbers of international students.

The institution already has 37 per cent of its students come to the Capital from overseas, the fourth highest level of international students in the UK.