Conquering The Complex

Head of sci-tech, Keith Papa, relates how our design philosophy for the world’s most complex sci-tech buildings has been informed by advancements over the last 60 years in practice.

ICI Wilton

BDP was formed to deliver complex building types and throughout every decade of our 60-year history we have worked to develop the best science and technology buildings in the UK.

The Department of Chemical Engineering and Nuclear Science at the University of Bradford, a bold expression of formal concrete rationalism, was one of the first buildings produced by the freshly forged partnership in 1965 and is still in use today. The red brick industrial modernist Wilton Centre for ICI, which spawned Zeneca Group plc, followed in the 1970s - now repurposed as one of the largest integrated science parks in the UK. During the 1980s and 1990s a dedicated Advanced Technologies division was established to produce industrial manufacturing plants required to make silicon chips and computer hard drives for Seagate, Fujitsu and some of the world’s modern technology pioneers. This led to three strands of work in the new millennium: advanced bioscience manufacturing such as The National Blood Service and Lifescan; commercial science facilities for Roche Pharmaceuticals and the development of several new science research facilities for the University of Cambridge and Dstl.

Today, our work in this sector has come full circle with the upcoming completion of the new global R&D centre and HQ for AstraZeneca on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. It’s a new embodiment of the same themes which led to the creation of the Wilton Centre and delivers a highly complex set of requirements within a beautiful and singular architectural form. Also reaching completion is the largest higher education science project in the UK; the Manchester Engineering Campus brings together the university’s engineers in a collaborative powerhouse of teaching and research. The trinity of giant science collaborations is completed by the Cavendish III project – a new home for the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physics. Research at sub-atomic levels will take place here, requiring a stable and unique design to incorporate a range of laboratories, offices, cleanrooms, workshops and collaborative learning spaces and multiple lecture theatres.

Collaboration feels like the word of the millennium. It is embedded in the culture and history of BDP and is particularly relevant in designing for science and technology. Taking a genuine collective approach working together with the scientists and users has typified our co-creationist approach in developing buildings such as the School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire which brings together a range of disciplines to conceive, design, implement and operate technologies of the future.

As a collective of architects and engineers, we are always at our most intelligent when we work together but even then, we cannot deem to define and render explicable a quark. Just as our science and technology clients cannot define and render explicable a building design. So only together can we understand the requirements and design the facilities that deliver the scientific discoveries of the future.

This new decade has heralded a desire for science parks to transform into larger, more collaborative hubs, incorporating housing and fostering a community spirit where a wide range of people can socialise as a collective, sharing research and business ideas. The masterplans and hub buildings at Alderley Park and the Fosterhill campus in Aberdeen exemplify this approach, designed to support no single entity but to encourage all scientists and engineers to work together for the greater good.

University of Manchester, Manchester Engineering Campus

Add to this our experience of developing higher education research campuses, at Coventry, Warwick, York, Manchester, Aberdeen and Cambridge and you start to see the formation of a backbone for collaborative research facilities across the UK.

And as we look to the future of design, we continually work to shift and optimise our thinking around these complex campuses and important buildings. We know that science and technology buildings generally consume large amounts of energy to keep researchers safe, maintain challenging environmental conditions and drive machines and equipment. This is fundamental to delivering scientific advancement, but we owe it to future generations to reduce environmental impact by creating efficient, low energy and zero carbon facilities. We have developed tools and techniques to test, challenge and refine energy demand, together with operational and embodied carbon emissions. This research has enabled us to design a 40,000m2 plant and microbial science research laboratory which aims to achieve a net zero carbon rating over 25 years.

The prediction, modelling, testing and implementation of carbon emission measurement brings our teams closer to the research and development techniques of our science and technology clients and can seem as much of a dark art as quantum theory - yet, in the same way that the latter enables our smart phones and computers, the development of our low carbon toolkit will enable net zero carbon future for us all.

We look forward to seeing what the next 60 years of science and technology will bring.