Buro Happold to help create inspirational design and engineering school
UK’s first National Centre of Excellence for design, engineering and enterprise will be housed in environmentally-friendly building
Buro Happold has been appointed to provide a range multi-disciplinary engineering services to the Dyson School of Design Innovation with the aim of creating a first class teaching environment in a sustainable, low energy building.
The school is the brainchild of James Dyson, inventor of the eponymous brand of bagless vacuum cleaners and one of Britain’s most successful and high-profile designers. The James Dyson Foundation is providing up to £12.5 million to establish the school, which will cost over £22 million to build. The Dyson School is intended to nurture the next generation of engineers, designers, inventors and entrepreneurs.
The Dyson School of Design Innovation, to open in Bath in 2008, will host 2,500 students per week, providing practical teaching and hands-on experience of machinery and technology more often seen in industrial research and development centres.
Buro Happold will be providing a range of services, including building services and structural engineering design for the school, in collaboration with award winning architects Wilkinson Eyre. It is also providing funding for the school through the Happold Trust, an educational charity set up by Buro Happold’s founding partners in 1995, as part of the practice’s broader efforts to draw more young people into a career in engineering.
Buro Happold partner Neil Squibbs, who is leading the practice’s role in the project, says: “Buro Happold is particularly pleased to be involved with this project and efforts to support and train the next generation of engineers and designers. With a figure like James Dyson heading the project, more youngsters will be drawn towards the exciting world of engineering, design and innovation which is so important to our economy. Ultimately, we will all benefit from establishment of this school.”
“We need to reverse the trend of fewer numbers of young people going into engineering each year and Buro Happold is proud to help James Dyson in what amounts to direct action to tackle the problem. We hope the innovative, low energy building planned for the school will itself act as an example of the role good design can play, backing up the message given in the classrooms,” says Squibbs.
The school will have the latest low energy technology and strategies to minimise its carbon dioxide emissions. It will utilise natural or passive ventilation and use the thermal mass of the concrete structure to reduce the requirement for energy necessary to provide cooling and heating. This will be particularly effective on the north side of the building which overlooks the River Avon.
The river itself may also be used to help reduce energy use, through an innovative system currently being considered. This will use the river water to pre-cool air being fed into the building in summer. This would work in conjunction with a labyrinth system below the ground floor slab which, similarly, would cool the building’s air intake. In winter, the cycle can be reversed to take heat from the river water to pre-heat air and reduce the reliance on conventional, carbon dioxide producing heating systems.
This proposed design feature, which is subject to planning approval, is possible due to the close proximity of the River Avon, which also creates a need to raise the height of the building’s ground floor to avoid the risk of flooding, enabling creation of the labyrinth cooling system.
The building structure will primarily be of reinforced concrete, chosen for its economy and ability to carry the heavy loads of the workshop machinery while being less susceptible than other structural materials to the transmission of noise and vibration that equipment will create.
Passive ventilation works by specifying large areas of exposed concrete (in this case for the building’s columns, walls, ceilings and beams), which naturally reduce extremes of internal temperature in winter and summer. On hot days the concrete remains cool for much of the day, following an overnight heat purge controlled by automatic window opening, thus helping maintain a more comfortable temperature and reducing the need for mechanical cooling systems. In winter, the thermal mass of concrete means it retains heat so the building naturally stays warmer for longer.
Other features throughout the building include: high efficiency boilers and variable speed drives along with computerised building control strategies, effective insulation and low air infiltration rates (via reduced leakage through cracks, spaces and ventilation equipment) and high performance building materials. Lighting will also be controlled by sensors linked to daylight and user occupancy, ensuring they are turned off when not needed.
The project will also contain a central atrium which will be made of steel, supporting a lightweight ETFE foil cushion roof.
Project team
Client The James Dyson Foundation
Architect Wilkinson Eyre
Buro Happold services Structural engineering, building services engineering, computer simulation analysis of the internal environment, infrastructure, fire, ground and acoustic engineering.
ENDS
Background information for editors:
Press office and practice information at www.burohappold.com
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.
The Happold Trust
The Happold Trust is a registered charity established in 1995 by the practice’s founder, Ted Happold, and the founding partners. It promotes education, research and training in the fields applicable to the construction industry, engineering, design, technology and architecture. The Trust is funded by donations from the Buro Happold partnership and is administered by a group of Trustees. It is one of the patrons of Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief (RedR).
James Dyson Foundation
The James Dyson Foundation, a registered charity, was founded in 2002 with the objective of building on James Dyson’s history of philanthropic work, having previously raised £1.8 million for Breakthrough Breast Cancer and £1.5 million for the Meningitis Research Foundation. It aims to support medical research charities, design and technology and engineering educational work and community projects in Malmesbury, the town which is home to Dyson’s Research Design and Development Centre
Neil Wilks
Telephone +44 (0)1225 321 764
Fax +44 (0)870 787 4148
Mobile +44 (0)7738 574 178
Email neil.wilks@burohappold.com
