American pharmaceutical group Merck (known as MSD in Europe) has announced that it intends to build a new UK headquarters across from the King’s Cross station in collaboration with Precis Advisory, Architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, and AKT II engineering consultancy. GSD community-members are represented across the project at all three collaborative partners, most prominently Faaiza Lalji MDes ’13 who is the Planning and Development Director of Precis Advisory.

The project would put special focus on creating a structure that acknowledges and complements the history of the area while also sitting at the forefront of sustainability. A press release from Precis Advisory shares the following details of the project: “The proposed building, ten stories on Euston Road and four stories (with a fifth story set back) on Argyle Square, will deliver c 180,000 sq ft of net lettable space for MSD, would use sustainable materials and has been designed to reduce carbon emissions generated through construction, operation and future fit-out refurbishment. An innovative double-skin façade would reduce solar gain and the energy required to cool the office spaces, and includes a biophilic zone which gives visibility of plants from every workspace and from outside the building.”

An article in the Financial Times notes that “Merck’s UK hub will be its first set of labs outside the US that carry out early-stage research to discover new medicines.”

The project has not yet been finalized and is still subject to planning permission and approval.