New addition to Edinburgh’s Napier University opens

08/10/2010 Written by: Gill Sincock

Buro Happold delivers sustainable solutions for Napier’s new Sighthill campus

World renowned Napier University in Edinburgh can now boast a state of the art Faculty of Health, Life and Social Sciences with learning, teaching and research facilities for 5,000 students and staff within its newly opened Sighthill campus.

Wealth of resources

A glass fronted atrium creates a social space and connects the buildings on the redeveloped campus which also includes a Learning Resource Centre, IT-enabled lecture theatres and seminar rooms, clinical skills laboratories and sports facilities. Built on a brownfield site the development has contributed significantly to the wider regeneration of North Sighthill and the local economy. The construction programme supported in the region of 100 full time jobs, and the income generated from staff and student based on the finished campus will bring major economic benefits to the surrounding area.

Collaborative partnership

International multidisciplinary engineering consultancy Buro Happold worked closely with RMJM Architects to develop the structural and building services design for the campus and it was this collaborative partnership that enabled many of the structural elements within the buildings to be delivered in their originally intended architectural form. The beam and column layout was carefully chosen to achieve the desired aesthetic, and a materials appraisal was carried out to deliver a solution that fulfilled the requirements of the scheme.

The buildings are heavily serviced in certain areas, so the floors have been designed to minimise the structural depth and create a clear services zone, free from interruptions. Taking a holistic approach to these issues enabled Buro Happold to integrate many of these services.

Targeting BREEAM Excellent

One of the key aims for the campus was to achieve an ‘excellent’ rating in the BREEAM pre-assessment. To meet this, the design incorporated natural ventilation using buoyancy driven stack ventilation across a large proportion of the site. Wherever possible, the passive control of spaces has been optimised through a detailed analysis of the orientation of the building, solar shading and the location of certain space types. In addition the concrete floor soffits are exposed in several areas, to take advantage of the material’s inherent thermal mass.

Team work

Graeme Gidney, Buro Happold’s project director on the scheme added “I’m really pleased with the work we have delivered on this project in terms of Buro Happold’s interdisciplinary team-working and the collaboration between all of our partners. This high level of communication and information sharing has enabled us to deliver a highly sustainable teaching facility in budget and on time.”

Project team

Client:

Napier University

Architect:

RMJM

Buro Happold services:

Building Services, Structural, Ground and Fire Engineering, Infrastructure, Computation of Simulation Analysis, Acoustics