Across the UK in 2023…and looking forward to 2024
For Buro Happold’s integrated UK teams of engineers, experts and advisors, 2023 was a thrilling year. There have been spectacular triumphs, big changes, new trends and fascinating challenges met with ingenuity and dedication. Reflecting on the successes and innovations of their projects and initiatives, our regional directors share their highlights of the past year and reveal what they are excited about in 2024.
Ian Stewart on… Scotland
In 2023 we were successful in winning a project that isn’t just once-in-a generation, but once-in-500-years! The building services and civil and structural commissions for the refurbishment of the Madras College is a big project to regenerate a significant building at heart of the University of St Andrews. To say we are excited about it doesn’t even come close!
Another highlight for the Scotland office is the ‘Artworks’ Project for the National Galleries of Scotland, creating a new collections facility for their National Galleries. This will be a sizeable project and an important one in our portfolio. We achieved planning permission in November 2023, and work is due to start on site this year. It’s going to be our first Passivhaus project in Scotland, and one of the biggest in the country. Passivhaus is a certification scheme, the principles being that you construct an extremely airtight, low-energy consumption building. This represents a significant and thrilling challenge for us.
Meanwhile, our Energy Team has been doing a lot of work with local and city councils regarding their decarbonisation. We have also completed a decarbonisation study for the University of Edinburgh. We presented them with an asset-portfolio study that identified in what order they might tackle some of their buildings in terms of building fabric, and the pathway to net zero carbon and energy consumption.
We are also very proud of our relationships with key cultural bodies. We have worked with the National Libraries of Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland, and the National Museums of Scotland.
In the commercial sector, we have been successfully working on our first big project with the Chris Stewart Group. This is a multi-disciplinary refurbishment in a prominent location in Edinburgh. They are stitching together a group of buildings to create a hotel. This is a complex project as each building has a different set of constraints or opportunities, as well as different levels. A crucial part of our role is how our detailed 3D modelling is de-risking the project for the client, and helping them understand the site right from conception.
Projects that are coming up in 2024 include going on-site in the summer with the Futures Institute at Dollar Academy, which will be delivered to receive the country’s first Living Building certification. Our work with the Historic Environment Scotland Archives in Bonnyrigg will go on-site this year as well.
We are also excited about moving to our new home at New Clarendon House on George Street, in February/March.
Andrew Tabern on… the North West
Highlights for the North-West in 2023 included planning applications for Tate Liverpool, and the library at the Manchester Metropolitan University. This building boasts a stunning design, and we are thrilled to be involved in a potentially award-winning project. On that subject, we also enjoyed success with the Manchester Metropolitan University’s School of Digital Arts. This facility is a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) North West award winner 2023. The Manchester Jewish Museum, on which my team completed a long-running restoration and refurbishment, also won a RIBA North West award in 2023 before going on to clinch the National Award.
Seeing the public interacting with and enjoying the newly opened Aviva Studios (the home of Factory International) was a real highlight of 2023. I am also incredibly proud of the work we are doing for Everton’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock and hope this becomes a catalyst for the generation of Liverpool’s waterfront.
Meanwhile, we have made a flying start to our on-site refurbishment of Terminal 2 at Manchester Airport and planning permission has been submitted for the extension of Terminal 3, which will start on-site in 2024.
On the environmental front, we rolled out over 2 megawatts of solar PV capacity across Greater Manchester, and delivered sustainability strategies for the Lowry Theatre and Salford Cathedral. As well as setting our own net zero route map, we also supported the Manchester Climate Partnership by delivering the Commercial Sector Retrofit Pathway report, to advise local policy.
We are very proud of the sustainability credentials of 4 Angel Square. Our engineering strategy behind this commercial office space at NOMA aspires to extremely high environmental standards – including net zero carbon.
The green agenda is obviously hugely significant, and we will continue to champion low-carbon design solutions and embed that knowledge with our clients and collaborators. We also completed the refurbishment of our Manchester office to create a brighter, more open space with additional capacity, which has been important as our team continues to grow.
I anticipate a similarly exciting 2024, with highlights including the continuation of our work on the Eden Project North in Morecambe, and ‘Co-Op Live’ music venue in Manchester, as well as starting on-site at the Marine Lake Event Centre in Southport,
Following our successful delivery of 4 Angel Square, we will begin the construction of 2 and 3 Angel Square. Across the region, we will continue to support the development of our larger regional town centres through our relationships with both private and public sector clients.
Justin Phillips on… London and the South-East
2023 was a year of triumph and transition for the London and South-East office. We have been thrilled by the success of our work on Battersea Power Station. Buro Happold has been working on a long-running project to sympathetically transform this iconic Grade II* listed building from a much-loved industrial relic into a vibrant 21st-century destination.
Battersea Power Station won over 16 awards in 2023 – including the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Major Project Award for Sustainability, the Institution of Structural Engineers Structural Awards and success at the World Architecture Forum awards. This is a real cause for celebration after around 20 years of involvement on the project. And we’re still working on it, helping our client deliver the next phase of residential development over the next three years.
We are also very excited about our new offices. In January 2024 we started moving into the Featherstone Building on City Road. It’s been a real labour of love. There are four key elements to the building. The first is sustainability; the Featherstone strongly aligns with our environmental commitments. The second is centering design around inclusivity in the workplace. The third element is how smart technology will optimise building performance and effective use of space.
Everyone will have their own app and do everything through their phone in a very integrated way. Smart technology will also influence factors such as energy use and understanding where the hot and cold spots are. The fourth element is that, while we worked on Featherstone with one of our closest collaborators, Gensler, we utilised a lot of our own disciplines, such as building services engineering (MEP), sustainability, lighting, acoustics, inclusive design, security and structural engineering. I am particularly excited by our timber staircase, which really showcases our skill in timber engineering.
The repurposing of buildings is a critical development in the London market for 2024 and beyond. The idea of simply knocking down buildings and putting up new ones has become the hot topic in London regarding embodied carbon and demolition. In the London market there has been a big focus on clients asking us to repurpose buildings. We are seeing a lot of repurposing projects now; sometimes it’s changing an office to a life-sciences or laboratory-type use, which is a growing trend; or offices switching to residential; or buildings created for retail moving towards mixed use.
One such challenge is the redevelopment of a high-profile West End building. We are exploring jacking up parts of this building to create a dramatic double-height arrivals space, as well as increase the overall development floor area.
Also, led by the green agenda, funders and developers are pushing to improve the operational performance of a building to attract new tenants. This is increasingly drawing on our design and advisory skills to optimise the reuse of buildings.
Claire Smith on… the South-West
2023 kicked off with our first our annual client drinks for a long time, and it felt great to be back face-to-face post lockdowns. We hosted this event in the Bath Quays South – Newark Works – Buro Happold for which we completed the full engineering design service in 2022. The client kindly let us use their building and the event was extremely well-attended because everyone wanted to come and have a look at the rescue of this much-loved building.
A key focus for us in 2023 was the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone in Bristol. We are working on a cluster of developments springing up in that area, which has been unlocked by the creation of the new entrance at Bristol Temple Meads station. We have been on-site since April with the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus (TQEC) – Buro Happold for the University of Bristol. This catalytic project is progressing well. The next step out in this area is St Philip’s Marsh. Here, we have embarked on a project with Studio Egret West to transform the Bristol Fruit Market into a sustainable, residential-led, mixed-use neighbourhood.
In September, we were part of the team to secure planning permission for Bristol’s Ashton Gate and Longmoor Village. This involves building a major basketball arena and conference venue, hotel, flats, car park and offices at Ashton Gate Stadium, with 500 homes nearby. Ashton Gate is a huge success story, bringing together the football and the rugby. It is an anchor venue for Bristol, doing things in a new way and it is great for Buro Happold to be part of it.
I am also proud of the University of Warwick Faculty of Arts – Buro Happold building being shortlisted for the Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize 2023 (watch our case-study video on the project here). On this project, we provided multidisciplinary support to design an architecturally outstanding facility. It was special to achieve this with one of our key collaborators, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios. We’re both Bath-based companies that have grown up together, and still work together to produce high-quality buildings.
We have also expanded our portfolio of university projects in the region, with further work at the Universities of Exeter and Portsmouth. Meanwhile, at The Distillery – Buro Happold in Bristol, we are providing multidisciplinary services for the next phase of a striking new commercial development.
The post-Covid landscape was significant in 2023. We sponsored a local girls’ under-11 football team, to encourage children to get out and get active after the restrictions of lockdown. We have also been advising clients on how best to use their space. People are using space differently since Covid. They see that they can work remotely but that there are times when they need to bring people together. People also want to use their space more effectively to reduce their carbon footprint and manage their energy needs. We look forward in 2024 to supporting our clients on their strategic change.
Christine Lowry… on the North-East
Over 2023, our office worked on many multidisciplinary projects. This means we are all sharing in the success and further cementing the great sense of community in the North-East team.
For example, we have been working with Leeds University on a long-term plan to decarbonise the campus. This has involved a huge number of our disciplines and seen us get involved in everything, from their electrical infrastructure to building-retrofit studies, as well as helping them to plan their reduced reliance on fossil fuels. At both the University of Leeds and Leeds Beckett University, we are creating geothermal wells in 2024.
We are heavily involved with Aire Park, at the heart of Leeds. This large community development centres around the creation of homes, offices and commercial space, surrounding a new city park. Meanwhile, we are in the early stages of advising the clients at Kirkstall Forge, Leeds, on their exciting project to transform the site into a sustainably led community with high-quality offices, new homes and a range of facilities.
We also started on-site with the British Library’s new automated storage archive at Boston Spa near Wetherby. This project, which will be Passivhaus-accredited, is a world first at its scale. In Leeds city centre, we are working with the British Library at the Temple Works Building – a listed historic building at risk of collapse. We took great strides in 2023 to demonstrate that the building is eminently suitable for its intended use.
I am very proud of the work we have done on the Hebburn Renewable Heat Network. It provides heating to social housing and leisure/community facilities in the north-east of England.
It was immensely satisfying seeing the award-winning Mayfield Park – the first city park in Manchester for 100 years – open in September; and we derived great joy from seeing the amazing audience reaction to the reopened Hyde Park Picture House – the only remaining gaslamp-lit cinema in the world. We have worked on the project since 2015, making the original building more accessible and adding an extension. In the basement, we also excavated another mini auditorium, so they now have two screens.
In 2024, we will also be working on Nottingham Forest Football Club’s stadium. This is a multidisciplinary project to install two corner stands. The club wants these structures on stilts to provide access in and out of the stadium for supporters. So we are kicking off 2024 full of excitement.
