Higher Education Brochure

Education

Architects

Heritage Consultants Masterplanners

Education shapes us into the people we become. So do the buildings in which we learn and work. We design first-class learning facilities that inspire young people and encourage their growth, learning and development.

From repairing and restoring historic buildings to the creation of cutting-edge facilities, we design exceptional educational spaces that reflect the university’s unique culture, community and philosophy.

Key to Projects:

Community

Universities become a formative second home to students, scholars and faculty. The buildings that facilitate these interconnected communities need to create a sense of togetherness and fellowship — a home away from home. By providing high-quality solutions for communal spaces — such as student common rooms, dining halls and Porter’s lodges we are able to realise our client’s goals to foster a sense of place and community.

We have delivered such schemes at several Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Queen Mary University of London, University of Essex and University of Northampton amongst others.

The success of these projects is achieved through close collaboration with the client and developing an understanding of the end-user’s needs and habits.

St Catherine’s College, Oxford

St Catherine’s new Graduate Centre provides multiple learning environments, including seminar, multi-purpose space and the Middle Common Room, all to a high architectural quality to ensure end-user enjoyment. The centre provides somewhere comfortable to quietly study or research whilst in a relaxed environment and also social hubs for the graduate student community.

We were also commissioned to extend student accommodation facilities to enable the College to continue to grow and expand. The new student accommodation pavilion is completely accessible and up to modern standards.

“It has been a real pleasure to work collaboratively on the design with Purcell and to watch them negotiate all the challenges that the process threw up, with imagination, tact, finesse and a healthy dose of common sense”

- Fram Dinshaw, Bursar

St John’s College, Cambridge

Our work at St John’s College has seen the refurbishment of outdated student accommodation and increased common spaces. The Maufe Building refurbishment was a phased £6m project to provide student rooms with ensuite facilities and enclosure of part of the colonnade to extend the porters’ lodge. The project also saw the reordering of support facilities including the health centre to better serve the College.

The refurbishment of Grade I-listed E Stair, New Court has brought the building up to date, whilst respecting its heritage, for the exclusive use of Fellows. It has seen the sensitive insertion of a lift, renewal of all services, external conservation repairs and internal reordering to adapt the staircase to suit modern requirements and comforts.

St Antony’s College, Hilda Besse

The Hilda Besse Building, an iconic 20th century building by HKPA, was suffering after 50 years of continual use. Purcell is currently working to completely refurbish the building to protect the structure and ensure the much-loved building is able to best serve the next generations of students. Hilda Besse is the heart of St Antony’s College, containing all the social spaces for the College.

With our in-depth knowledge of 20th century structures our work will enhance its distinctive architectural qualities whilst ensuring the building’s sustainable future.

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Collaboration

Universities are founded on the physical coming together of minds; a collaborative environment of migratory scholars and students creating a shared hub of intelligence and discourse.

Designing high-quality work spaces is our speciality. Whether flexible, multi-purpose spaces or highly bespoke laboratories or studios, we have experience in creating distinctive spaces which nurture and facilitate collaborative exchange.

A building demands a collaborative design process. We work with our clients through masterplanning exercises to identify potential opportunities and how their long-term pedagogical strategies can be facilitated through new building design and interventions. Understanding the flow of people and information, the kind of work being carried out there and what kind of people will be using a building is key to designing successful university workspaces.

University of Essex

Purcell have worked with the University of Essex over several years providing refurbishment projects, new build scheme and heritage consultancy services. We have devised various complex solutions for the growing university including converting a redundant subterranean boiler house into a state of the art teaching facility. Other works include new laboratories and refurbishment of existing buildings to provide new research laboratories.

We have re-imagined teaching and learning environments that encourage innovation, collaboration and creativity. Our micro-biological sciences laboratory, for example, encourages cross-disciplinary working through a central laboratory combining complimentary research disciplines, enveloped by specialist laboratories.

© University of Essex

University of Kent, School of Arts

Purcell converted five historic dockyard buildings, to provide a fine arts centre with large, lettable studios, a student workshop, state-of-the-art music studios and a dance studio. The development contained a variety of listed buildings and scheduled ancient monuments which have been sensitively adapted.

The project provided the University with a flexible series of spaces that can each be used to maximum advantage. To ensure all future use is as unhindered as possible, new wall linings and floors were installed throughout and the music studios were set up as self-contained units to maximise acoustic and equipment needs while observing the building’s historic fabric restrictions.

University Library, Cambridge

The Grade II-listed University Library (UL) is at the heart of learning and discovery at the University of Cambridge. Purcell was commissioned to prepare a detailed Assessment of Significance of Cambridge University Library to enable the university’s future planning for the site. Complementing the archival research and stakeholder consultation was a careful and detailed analysis of the built fabric. Despite the building’s considerable size, we worked methodically through the building to identify surviving fabric, such as small areas of the original rubber flooring in two stairwells and a single surviving example of the original staff office screening.

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© University of Cambridge, Sir Cam

Climate

For over 70 years, we have championed sustainability through our role as heritage leaders and conservation specialists. Retrofitting and refurbishment are at the heart of our practice with inefficiency and waste an anathema to all we do.

Today’s generation of students are equally passionate about the environment and university estates need to be transparent about their actions taken to reduce their carbon footprint.

We have achieved BREEAM Outstanding and Excellent rated projects in sensitive, historic settings for numerous university clients. We understand that how we repair, re-purpose and build today will improve the world for generations to come.

University of Northampton

This Grade II-listed Victorian engine shed, built in the 1870s, fell into a dilapidated condition. As part of a design team, we transformed the structure into a new Student Union building for the University of Northampton. Purcell carried out a condition survey on the building and was subsequently appointed by the client to introduce design solutions to upgrade the external envelope of the fire-damaged building to meet BREEAM Excellent and accessibility standards.

The Engine Shed has become a sustainable and award-winning functional space and social hub for the university and organisation, whilst preserving the heritage of the building and its previous function.

University of East Anglia

In 2019, Purcell is one of three architectural practices to the University’s framework and has since undertaken a number of refurbishment, adaptation and conservation projects.

From devising a Statement of Significance for the Lasdun Academic Teaching Wall through to improving the versatility of campus space, Purcell’s work throughout the site will improve accessibility and flexibility while sensitively conserving its renowned Brutalist architecture. This includes driving improvements to original facilities, such as Student Support Services whose users deal with environmental performance and controls challenges arising from their type of construction.

Blue Boar Quad, Christ Church

A seminal Modernist building, Blue Boar is a residential quad designed for Christ Church in 1968 by acclaimed British architects Powell & Moya and is now Grade II* listed. Since its completion, the building was plagued by leaking roofs, cracking stone cladding and services failure. The client required a solution that would not only improve the building’s performance, maximise the use of space and create development opportunities but also gain statutory approval.

The most important aspect of sustainability was the thermal upgrading of the building. We also introduced heat recovery ventilation, roof insulation and double-glazed windows as a replacement for the single-glazing.

Frameworks

As trusted partners of universities, we assist them in realising their long-term capital project goals and programmes. We are approved suppliers of several institutional frameworks including those of the universities of East Anglia and Oxford, as well as on wider procurement routes such as Pagabo and Procure Partnerships.

Our inclusion on a given university’s framework demonstrates our proven track record on delivering high-quality schemes and our compliance as a company in terms of quality assurance and business continuity. Through a framework we are able to establish long-lasting relationships which enables us to guide clients through complex projects.