The King's Buildings (colloquially known as just King's or KB) is a campus of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Located in the suburb of Blackford, the site contains most of the schools within the College of Science and Engineering, excepting only the School of Informatics and part of the School of Geosciences, which are located at the central George Square campus. The campus lies south of West Mains Road, west of Mayfield Road and east of Blackford Hill, about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of George Square. [1] Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) and Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) also have facilities there.
In 1919 Edinburgh University bought the land of West Mains Farm in the south of the city with the intention of building a satellite campus specialising in the Sciences. The first building was the Chemistry Building (renamed the Joseph Black Building) designed by Arthur Forman Balfour Paul in 1919. [2] Building started in 1920 and was completed after 1924 by John Fraser Matthew. This was followed by the Zoology Building (renamed the Ashworth Laboratories) dating from 1929, also by Matthew.
The name "King's Buildings" is a reference to then-king George V.
During World War II, the Genetics Institute part of King's Buildings was used as the location for the first War Office Selection Board. [3]
University of Edinburgh celebrated more than 100 years of the site in 2021 with their KB101 campaign which included a lecture series [4] and newly commissioned artworks by Katie Paterson. [5]
All the campus properties shared one of two addresses until, in 2014, the University approached the City of Edinburgh Council, as the road naming authority, with a request to name all the individual roads within the campus to honour famous scientists and mathematicians associated with the University. When the proposed changes were discussed in City of Edinburgh Development Management Sub-Committee, it was pointed out that some of the names were overly long and cumbersome. Two of the proposed names were rejected as unsuitable as Christina Miller was deemed to be too similar sounding to Christie Miller, who already appears in three street names; and Robert Edwards did not meet the Council’s 10-year waiting period for deceased people. The University eventually substituted Marion Ross Road for Christina Miller Road and James Dewar Road for Robert Edwards Road. [6]
The final agreed street system was:
Building names at KB reflect the spectrum of British science:
On 5 August 2014, FloWave TT [10] was inaugurated by Amber Rudd, UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. The FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility is a world-unique, 25-metre (82 ft) diameter wave and current tank primarily focused on testing marine energy technologies and projects.
In 2019 the data centre in the James Clerk Maxwell Building was named in honour of Mary Somerville [11] and in 2020 the IT skills training room was named in honour of Xia Peisu.
The KB 5 Road Race is organised every year by the Edinburgh University Hare and Hounds Running Club. [14] It is usually held in late February or early March. The race starts and finishes inside the King's Buildings campus. The course consists of a 5-mile (8.0 km) road loop around the streets of south Edinburgh, with quite a few hills, though none of them steep. The race is popular with student and local club runners and usually attracts around 250 participants. [15]
Heriot-Watt University is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1821 as the School of Arts of Edinburgh, the world's first mechanics' institute, and subsequently granted university status by royal charter in 1966. It is the eighth-oldest higher education institute in the UK. The name Heriot-Watt was taken from Scottish inventor James Watt and Scottish philanthropist and goldsmith George Heriot.
Edinburgh Napier University is a public university in Edinburgh, Scotland. Napier Technical College, the predecessor of the university, was founded in 1964, taking its name from 16th-century Scottish mathematician and philosopher John Napier. The technical college was inaugurated as a university in 1992 by Lord Douglas-Hamilton, becoming Napier University. In 2009, the university was renamed Edinburgh Napier University.
Mahanakorn University of Technology is a university in Thailand. The university was established on February 27, 1990 at Nong Chok District, Bangkok. as Mahanakorn College by Prof. Dr. Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, former Dean of King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang. The objective was to train engineering students in response to the severe shortage of engineers. MUT was then promoted to full university status under the new name Mahanakorn University of Technology .It is the first and still the only university in the country that operates its own low-orbit microsatellite (TMSAT).
Edinburgh University Students' Association (EUSA) is the students' union at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. The Association's aim is the advancement of education of Edinburgh students by representing and supporting them, and by promoting their interests, health and welfare within the community. It is led by a team of five elected student sabbatical officers.
The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (ROE) is an astronomical institution located on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh. The site is owned by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The ROE comprises the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) of STFC, the Institute for Astronomy of the School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Edinburgh, and the ROE Visitor Centre.
Blackford is an area in the south of Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. It is located near Morningside, and The Grange. Blackford Hill dominates the view to the south. The majority of the Blackford is now housing, mostly dating from the Victorian or Edwardian eras.
The Moray House School of Education and Sport is a school within the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh. It is based in historic buildings on the Holyrood Campus, located between the Canongate and Holyrood Road.
Teviot Row House, or Teviot, is one of the student union buildings at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Run by Edinburgh University Students' Association (EUSA), the building in Bristo Square is the oldest purpose built student Union building in the world, having been opened in 1889.
The University of Edinburgh is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the town council under the authority of a royal charter of King James VI in 1582 and officially opened in 1583, it is one of Scotland's four ancient universities and the sixth-oldest university in continuous operation in the English-speaking world. The university played an important role in Edinburgh becoming a chief intellectual centre during the Scottish Enlightenment and contributed to the city being nicknamed the "Athens of the North."
The University of Edinburgh School of Physics and Astronomy is the physics department of the University of Edinburgh. The School was formed in 1993 by a merger of the Department of Physics and the Department of Astronomy, both at the University of Edinburgh. The Department of Physics itself was a merger between the Department of Natural Philosophy and the Department of Mathematical Physics in the late 1960s. The School is part of the University's College of Science and Engineering.
The Inverness Campus is an area in Inverness, Scotland. 5.5 hectares of the site have been designated as an enterprise area for life sciences by the Scottish Government. This designation is intended to encourage research and development in the field of life sciences, by providing incentives to locate at the site.
Edinburgh College is a further and higher education institution with campuses in Edinburgh and Midlothian, Scotland. It serves the Edinburgh Region, Edinburgh, East Lothian and Midlothian, and is the largest college in Scotland. It was formed on 1 October 2012 as part of the merger of Edinburgh's Jewel and Esk, Telford, and Stevenson colleges. The college has four campuses, all of which were previously the campuses of the constituents of the merger: Jewel and Esk's College Milton Road (Jewel) Campus and Eskbank Campus ; Edinburgh Telford College ; and Stevenson College Edinburgh
The Edinburgh Science Triangle (EST) is a multi-disciplinary partnership between universities, research institutes, the National Health Service, science parks, the national economic development agency Scottish Enterprise, and central and local government in Edinburgh and neighbouring council areas. The three points of the "triangle" are Livingston in West Lothian, Musselburgh in East Lothian, and the Easter Bush campus in Midlothian.
Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) is a public land based research institution focused on agriculture and life sciences. Its history stretches back to 1899 with the establishment of the West of Scotland Agricultural College and its current organisation came into being through a merger of smaller institutions.
The FloWave TT ocean energy research facility is designed to test physical scale models of marine renewable energy devices, in a combined wave and current environment.
John Mavor was a pioneer in the design of MOS transistors and Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs) for signal processing. During his career as an educator and researcher at the University of Edinburgh he was appointed Professor before becoming Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering. He was subsequently appointed as Principal and Vice-Chancellor at Edinburgh Napier University.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Edinburgh:
40 George Square is a tower block in Edinburgh, Scotland forming part of the University of Edinburgh. Until September 2020 the tower was named David Hume Tower. The building contains lecture theatres, teaching spaces, offices, a café and a shop.
The Regius Chair of Astronomy is one of eight Regius Professorships at the University of Edinburgh, and was founded in 1785. Regius Professorships are those that have in the past been established by the British Crown, and are still formally appointed by the current monarch, although they are advertised and recruited by the relevant university following the normal processes for appointing a professorship.