AstraZeneca revealed its proposed designs for its new global R&D center and corporate headquarters in Cambridge, U.K. The facility, which will be located on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC), includes the global center, an R&D enabling building and an energy center.

Key features of the site include: high-tech labs separated from other work spaces by glass walls to promote ‘visible science’; a number of open spaces and thoroughfares to encourage collaboration; and environmental efficiency with a low energy design and the largest ground source heat pump in Europe.

The new site will bring together AZ’s small molecule and biologics R&D activity. The CBC will be the new U.K. home for biologics research and protein engineering carried out by MedImmune, AZ’s biologics arm. MedImmune already employs 500 at Granta Park, to the south east of the city.

“With our combined AstraZeneca and MedImmune portfolios we are already uniquely positioned to explore the promise of combination therapies in transforming the way patients are treated,” said Dr. Bahija Jallal, executive vice president, MedImmune.

AZ expects to begin the build of the new site in early 2015.