Guests looked down on Aberdeen yesterday as a topping out ceremony took place at the city’s new £37million research facility.
Aberdeen University’s Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health is being built at Foresterhill, Europe’s biggest health campus. It replaces the current facility at Bucksburn.
Along with the adjacent Institute for Medical Sciences, the development will help the university augment its reputation as a world-leading centre for scientific research into nutrition and health.
Scheduled to open next year, the five-floor, glass-fronted structure will cover an area of 11,000 square yards and house specialised laboratory facilities and equipment.
Building work has reached its highest point, leading to yesterday’s topping out celebrations.
A topping out ceremony is a traditional, symbolic, event in the building trade where the last beam is placed at the top of a construction.
University staff and guests, and representatives from designers Halliday Fraser Munro, and Lend Lease, responsible for construction, made their way skywards yesterday.
The principal of Aberdeen University, Professor Sir Ian Diamond, said: “We are delighted to celebrate this important milestone in the building of the new Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health.
“The breakthroughs in nutritional science being achieved by scientists working within the Rowett are already playing a crucial role in tackling the global health challenges of obesity, ageing and food security.”
The director of the institute, Professor Peter Morgan, said the building will be the leading research facility of its kind in Britain.
He added: “With rapidly growing rates of obesity, much more work is needed, particularly when it comes to understanding how and why people eat in the way that they do and what can be done to change eating behaviour.”