The Princess Royal has unveiled the £8m Clyde Williams building at Loughborough University (LU) in Leicestershire, which is at the centre of unversity's new school of sports, exercise and health studies.

Designed by London-based David Morley Architects, the new centre was built by GB-Building Solutions and houses 27 laboratories, four teaching rooms and a large lecture theatre, as well as two climatic chambers, a sprint lane and bespoke training and testing equipment. LU's schools of sports and exercise sciences and human sciences will be brought together as part of the new combined school, which will become operational in August ahead of the forthcoming academic year.

The new centre is named after Professor Clyde Williams, who fronted the university's inaugural sports science research group and has helped to establish LU as one of the leading institutions in the subject.