Blizard Building

The building was commissioned in Autumn 2000, and designed by the architect Will Alsop. Construction began in November 2003, with AMEC as the main contractor, and was completed in March 2005, at a cost of £45 million. It was officially opened in October 2005 by The Princess Royal. Construction on a £2 million extension in the form of a Neuron Pod began in April 2018 and was completed in March 2019. This extension, also designed by Alsop, was one of his last works, as he died one month after construction began.

The building consists of two glass-clad and steel-framed pavilions, separated by a central yard, and connected to each other by a multi-coloured glass walkway. The glass cladding of the pavilions includes some coloured panels designed by the artist Bruce McLean, depicting images inspired by molecular science. The walkway also provides access to the Neuron Pod, a free standing steel structure located at the northern end of the central yard. The pod is modelled on a nerve cell, and covered with hundred of plastic filaments, designed to look like hairs. These filaments are illuminated by optical fibres powered by projectors inside the pod. The larger, eastern pavilion contains a large, open…

In the third episode of the third series of the BBC crime drama Luther, broadcast in 2013, the Blizard Building was used as the filming location for a scene in which DCI John Luther (Idris Elba) meets Mary Day (Sienna Guillory).