A $44 million refurbishment and construction package will become home to the Department of Food Science – on its existing site, between Leith Walk and the Water of Leith on the Dunedin campus.
This project involves:
- Demolishing the food hall (known as the Tin Shed), workshop, Eleanor Gibson, and 280 Leith Walk in late 2021
- Extensively refurbishing the 3-level heritage Consumer and Applied Sciences (CApSc) Building
- Extensively refurbishing the 5-level Gregory Building, while also extending it to the east
- Constructing a new 5-storey building to link the CApSc and Gregory Buildings
Project aims
This project aims to address ageing infrastructure, seismic upgrade requirements, compliance requirements, and consistent growth in demand over a decade.
The CApSc building will no longer house the Product Development Laboratory. It will be refurbished as offices for staff, workstations for postgraduate students and a non-teaching laboratory – these are the types of uses the University favours for its heritage buildings.
The Gregory Building will be retrofitted as teaching spaces and research laboratories. Generously sized teaching labs for first-year students will be on the ground floor, and research labs on the upper floors.
A new 5-storey extension added to the eastern side of the Gregory Building will contain a goods lift, storerooms, and mechanical services, including water, heat, and electricity.
The new 5-level building will be the main entrance to the department, on the sites of the Tin Shed and Eleanor Gibson Building. This building will house:
- Basement – A workshop and plant
- Ground floor – The departmental office and food hall
- Level 1 – A division Pacific health and wellbeing initiative
- Levels 2 and 3 – A technicians' office and toilet on each floor. These smaller floors will still link to the Gregory and CApSCs Buildings.
Social areas on the new building's public floors will encourage interaction and collaboration among staff, students, and the public, while lots of windows will provide views over the Water of Leith.
This new building will absorb the floor-height differences between the CApSc and Gregory Buildings, as well as housing the vertical circulation core – stairs and lift.
This project will also free up other space Food Science is using on campus, by co-locating the department's staff, students, teaching, and research.
Project timeline
Temporary spaces for teaching labs should be ready in early 2022.
Demolition of the Gregory Building's interiors is scheduled to start in January 2022.
Main construction is planned to begin in September 2022.
Construction should be completed and handed over to Food Science about June 2024.