£100k environmental chamber coming to KU’s Penrhyn Road campus

A £100k environmental chamber, where students can experience the Saharan heat or Amazon humidity, is coming to KU’s Penrhyn Road campus.

Marc Williams

Kingston University will soon be able to experience the Saharan heat or Amazonian humidity, even if it is snowing outside.

Students are set to benefit from a £100,000 environmental chamber being built in the Penrhyn
Road grounds.

Extreme weather conditions

The chamber will be able to replicate extreme weather conditions from around the world and will aid sport and exercise students as well as elite athletes and even a Premier League football team.

James Brouner, course director for sport analysis and coaching, said: “We think the environmental chamber will be the highest-spec university facility of its kind within the M25. As well as improving our teaching and research, we can hire out our services.”

More in-depth studies

The sophisticated apparatus will be able to control temperatures ranging from 10 to 40 degrees centigrade and humidity levels from five to 95 per cent.

The new facility will replace a similar piece of kit already at the University. The current equipment is broken and in need of refurbishment to keep up with student research demands.

It will allow students to conduct more in-depth studies into sporting performance, nutrition and recuperation, and will play a prominent part in several dissertations around these topics for years to come.

Elite athletes

Mr Brouner said: “Kingston’s sporting students will be able to use the chamber if they wish to but we see it as more of research and development facility. It will be a great addition to the university and will help out with a lot of student’s work.”

As well as aiding Kingston students, the chamber will also be offered to elite athletes to test and train their skills in unusual and demanding weather conditions. Loaning out the facility will also help to pay off the expensive price-tag..