Location:
Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh
Client:
Sector:
Woolgar Hunter engineered the new premises for the University of Edinburgh's Usher Institute. Located at the Edinburgh BioQuarter, the new building houses health and wellbeing researchers across various departments of the university, with a focus on interdepartmental collaboration. The building delivers five storeys of work, teaching and leisure space, all set round a central full height atrium, with a dramatic feature staircase spanning the 14m lightwells. The Usher Institute focuses on interdepartmental collaboration and the building reflects that. The workspace is divided into 18 ‘neighbourhoods’ where researchers will coalesce around a particular area of medicine, health science of public health. These areas contain desks, meeting rooms and breakout spaces. There is a strong focus on staff wellbeing, with 45 cycle park spaces to encourage active travel, as well as on site showers and lockers. In addition to the atrium café, each work neighbourhood has a communal kitchen and social space, while two floors house winter gardens to create a bright, relaxing environment away from the workspace. The building was highly commended in the Best Higher Education/Research development at the IStructE Scottish Structural Awards.
Engineering Excellence
Woolgar Hunter was brought on board to address a scheme that had become costly and unwieldy, tasked with value engineering the building back to viability with savings in cost and carbon. We redesigned the superstructure to significantly reduce the loading requirements, removing inefficient ground beams and introducing steel piles to reduce material quantities and groundworks. Recycled steel piles were utilised as a more carbon efficient option. The ultimate solution has fewer internal columns, reducing the foundation and piling requirements and increasing the adaptability of the space for the tenant. Following stability testing, we introduced steel cores instead of concrete, meaning less materials and labour time. We undertook a comprehensive carbon analysis of the design, finding the selection of materials and efficiencies engineered into the new scheme led to a significant embodied carbon reduction.
