The project has provided a world-class new-build facility for the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy on a green-field plot on the West Cambridge Science and Technology campus. The UK’s top-ranked Materials Science department (previously housed within five buildings in the city centre) is now accommodated in a purpose-designed building, including a mix of teaching and research laboratories for 500 staff and students. Support facilities are highly specialist and include a large, free-standing Electron Microscopy suite. The brief was to design a new building for the whole department that would maximise opportunities for collaboration and informal interaction between scientists on a daily basis and provide highly specialised research facilities. The new building needed to be adaptable for future technological developments and changing research needs. A great part of the challenge was accommodating the needs of the 25 different research groups in one building. We actively engaged end-users in the design of their facility, leading the detailed briefing stage with the 25 groups to establish particular needs then bringing them together, along with support staff and students to participate in design workshops. Here, we tested concepts, undertook detailed space planning exercises using scaled templates with users, and tested full-size mock-ups of office space. This methodology helped to optimise layouts and build consensus on critical issues such as open-plan working and space-sharing, whilst allowing us to manage expectations within project area and cost constraints. The new building has a landmark presence on the West Cambridge Science and Technology campus. A polygonal grain pattern typical of materials microstructures represented in the external brick walls, highlights the subject, and throughout the laboratory, office, teaching and communal areas, the building has a presence appropriate for the international standing of the work conducted there.