3 April 2003
Tanaka Business School tops out
The topping out ceremony for the new Foster and Partners-designed Tanaka Business School at Imperial College was held on 2 April at the management school’s new location on Exhibition Road, South Kensington. The £26 million building costs have been met by noted technology investor and alumnus Dr Gary Tanaka.
The new landmark building, with structural, building services, civil, geotechnical, IT, AV and communication systems consultation by Buro Happold, is a mixture of new build and refurbishment. The entire new build element, together with a new College entrance, is cloaked in a protective envelope creating a year-round useable space. Six lecture theatres are arranged into a tower rising from the lower ground floor, the form being determined by the particular requirements of the Harvard Business School model and the interactive teaching method. The tower is enclosed in an ETFE foil cushion and glass atrium. The major roof supporting columns, along the facade, continue past the reclad Black Tower Building to enclose an existing sunken garden facing onto Exhibition Road.
At upper levels a further link is provided into the office areas of the refurbished levels 1, 2 and 3 of the Goldsmiths' Wing of the listed Royal School of Mines. A mix of open plan and cellular offices will meet the College’s policy of naturally ventilated office space.
Buro Happold has worked closely with Foster and Partners and the facade designers to create the elegant glass atrium. The Tanaka Business School has also presented several engineering challenges, including the investigation of the site’s existing and previous buildings to find a best value foundation scheme, and the verification of the existing buildings’ capacity to carry new loads from the atrium and plantrooms.
Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976 offering civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, quantity surveying, building services and environmental engineering, health and safety management, infrastructure and traffic engineering, ground engineering, façade engineering, fire engineering, computational fluid dynamics analysis, disability design consultancy, project management, urban design and a range of specialist CAD services.
External view of Tanaka Business School ©Foster and Partners
