A new three-storey faculty building providing a new home for various design disciplines within the East Park campus at Loughborough University. The multi-disciplinary design centre includes workshops, laboratories, studios, learning and lecture space available for teaching and research together with industry and enterprise links.
The configuration of structural elements, length and shape of the building required it to be split into three structural units, separated by movement joints.
Each block is a structurally independent concrete frame, although joined together with a number of buried ties and lightweight bridges spanning the central circulation void space.
The basic structure is a reinforced concrete frame, supported on piled foundations. The concrete is exposed in many areas and architecturally expressed both internally and externally. Parts of the external concrete frame were used to support the roof and various cladding systems, so these needed to be detailed carefully to avoid cold-bridging. 3D modelling software was used to fine-tune the positions of thermal breaks in external concrete elements. In some cases, intricate movement joints were included to allow for differential movement due to shrinkage and temperature variations.
The building has been rated BREEAM ‘Excellent’.
Completed 2011.
