The BioCentrum provides a new vision for the Downing and Old Addenbrooke’s sites that honours their history while transforming them into a vibrant, modern, attractive hub for learning, teaching and research.

The masterplan strategy allows the individual buildings – historic and proposed - to function collectively for teaching and research. The shared facilities will provide flexibility of usage for thematic research clusters to be based around the current biological sciences departments.

The Biocentrum will have one main entrance, new shared social facilities and better links across the site. A new quad at its heart will be shared between the teaching and research spaces and facilitate and encourage interaction and interdisciplinary research and enabling new disciplines to emerge.

The masterplan refurbishes existing buildings and integrates them with new buildings to create a united research facility.

Deep plan research wings house labs and specialist research areas. A 'spine' links these together, with nodes where they join to provide the circulation and servicing. A social ‘fulcrum’ pavilion is placed in the green heart of Hopkins Court and provides a space for all researchers to come together in shared social and administrative facilities.
 
Overall, the masterplan has the potential to increase the number of research scientists from 1,600 to 2,000 across the site and increase the space per researcher to be comparable with those of new life sciences buildings nationally and internationally.