Newcastle University has opened its £59m Urban Sciences Building, part of the £350m Science Central development in the city centre.
Designed by architect HawkinsBrown, the 12,500 sq m space is both home to the university’s School of Computing and the focal point of its role in the £125m UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities.
Contractor Bowmer & Kirkland used BIM to establish new standards for the university’s management of residual risk in future construction projects.
By incorporating a wide range of at-scale infrastructure and micro-sensing networks, the building and its surroundings have become a laboratory.
A sustainable urban drainage system, energy storage test bed, DC power grid, individual circuit monitoring, and CO2 sensing are just some of the features that will feed in to the Urban Observatory programme run by the university. An experimental electric vehicle filling station will be added in the near future.
Facade artwork and panels have been designed in a digital theme
In a nod to the building’s role as home to the School of Computing, facade artwork and panels have been designed in a digital theme. Reflecting both the old and the new, wall panels resemble the punch card technology used in the early years of computing and the atrium glass elevation is shrouded in a graphic representation of data flows.
Inside the building a 300-seat lecture theatre, seminar rooms, cafe, studio, and 250-seat computer cluster are complemented by a variety of meeting, study and social spaces.
The new building is the first of three around the Science Square area of the Science Central site. The university has already submitted a planning application for a £29m Learning and Teaching Centre in the square and earlier this week minister for digital, Matt Hancock, confirmed that the £30m National Innovation Centre for Data will also be built on the site.
