University of Southampton - From ashes springs new hope

Three years to the day after a fire destroyed a University of Southampton research facility, a new building has opened in its place. The £55 million Mountbatten Building on the Highfield Campus is a multidisciplinary and "clean room" complex, providing flexible research space for nanotechnology scientists. "The new building has risen like a phoenix from the ashes of its predecessor," said Harvey Rutt, head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science. "It fully realises the university's commitment, made the day after the fire, to ensure that our research would continue in even better and more appropriate surroundings."