New accommodation for Veterinary Medicine faculty

Utrecht University is building sustainable and future-proof accommodation in the USP East region for all users, where they can optimally study, do research and work on tomorrow's challenges. This is being done on the basis of the Strategic Housing Plan. By creating efficient and sustainable accommodation, we not only reduce energy emissions but also keep accommodation costs manageable. This allows us to invest more in education and research. 

Pleasant place

Veterinary Medicine will have a new and sustainable faculty building for education, research and staff. In this building, employees from different disciplines will meet each other and students will follow education. It will be a pleasant place to work and study together. A place where we can realise our ambitions for the future. There will also be a new research and education facility for farm animals at De Tolakker. In addition, we will adapt the work environment in some existing buildings and say goodbye to buildings that no longer meet 'the demands of the time'.

Connection and innovation

The new faculty building replaces the Androclus building, Nieuw Gildestein and the M.G. de Bruin building. The building will be at the location of the M.G. de Bruin building and the parking place. This will create a connected whole with De Tolakker and the veterinary clinics and bring together the people who should be together. This will naturally create more connection and exchange between the various departments. The central location also ensures good visibility of our faculty as a whole and of our research, education and patient care at the Utrecht Science Park (USP).

In order to use the space more efficiently, we will work according to the principles of Activity Based Working (ABW). In the office environment, different types of workplaces and spaces will be created to support various activities. As a result, fewer (fixed) workplaces are needed. 

Phased transition

There is a lot involved in realising our future accommodation. That is why we are taking it one step at a time. The first step is to ensure that the staff from the M.G. de Bruin building can move to a (temporary) place in one of the other buildings. To this end, the buildings Jeannette Donker-Voet, Androclus, Nieuw Gildestein, Prof. H. Jakob and Willem C. Schimmel need to be adapted. We combine this with the introduction of ABW in these buildings. Meanwhile, the new building at De Tolakker, to which the animals will move, will also start. After everyone has found another (temporary) place and the M.G. de Bruin building is empty, this building will be demolished. Then, as a final step, construction of the new faculty building can begin. In the meantime, the area around the buildings will also be redesigned and solar panels and heat and cold storage will be installed to make our energy consumption more sustainable. Many major changes will take place at the USP the coming years to realise this.

This whole process is a complex operation with many 'sliding movements' and dependencies, since our research, education and work must continue unabated in the meantime. The image below shows the current planning for the adaptation of the existing buildings, the new building at De Tolakker and the construction of the new faculty building.