British Land has struck its first letting at Paper Yard, SE16, a 33,000 sq ft modular lab space at the Canada Water redevelopment being delivered with AustralianSuper.
CheMastery, a start-up focused on increasing the efficiency of chemical research and manufacturing, will take 2,100 sq ft of office and lab space in the building.
The Hawkins\Brown-designed scheme has been built using modular construction methods and has been completed in nine months. The building uses existing components and materials that can be repurposed after deconstruction.
The building sits alongside TEDI-London, a higher education engineering enterprise co-founded by King’s College London, Arizona State University and UNSW Sydney.
Mike Wiseman, head of office leasing at British Land, said: “The completion of Paper Yard is the first step to delivering much-needed, highly sustainable lab and innovation space at Canada Water, and forms part of our vision to create a diverse and exciting neighbourhood rooted in innovation.
British Land and AustralianSuper have outlined their commitment to making Canada Water a life sciences hub, recently appointing Stanton Williams to draw up plans for a 300,000 sq ft building targeting the sector as part of the scheme’s second phase.
Speaking with EG earlier this year, Emma Cariaga, British land’s joint head of Canada Water, said the modular lab space is “a place for us to build and see what the depth of demand looks like in life sciences”.
She added: “Everyone talks of there being very deep demand and very little supply being available at the moment, so the modular campus is a way of us testing the market quite quickly.
“We hope through this we will be able to capture some of this immediate demand, and once they are here – since businesses are inherently sticky – the plan is to move them into a permanent building somewhere on the masterplan.
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