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Perspective
Cover - Ulster University
Architect - Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Photograph - Donal McCann
Published by Ulster Journals Ltd
39 Boucher Road, Belfast BT12 6UT
Telephone 028 9066 3311
Fax 028 9038 1915
Email copy@ulstertatler.com
Web www.rsua.org.uk
Managing Editor Christopher Sherry
Editorial Assistant Gemma Johnston
Advertising Sales Lorraine Gill
Design Tatler Type
Photography Donal McCann
Published as part of the Nov/Dec 2022 edition of Perspective, the Journal of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects
CONTRIBUTORS
Professor Alastair Adair is Pro Vice-Chancellor for Ulster University providing academic leadership in the development of the University’s new Belfast campus.As Professor of Real Estate Economics he is an internationally recognised educator and researcher with experience as a Chartered Surveyor in the fields of regeneration investment, valuation and property market analysis.
Michael McGarry is a Professor of Architecture at Queen’s University Belfast. He was a founding partner in McGarry Ní Éanaigh Architects, Group 91 Architects, and Urban Projects. In practice he was recipient of RIAI Annuals Awards, AAI Annual Awards, CCCB - European Prize for Urban Public Space, RIAI Silver Medal Housing, and UIA Medal Inclusive Building.
Stephen Gallagher is an associate architect at FCBStudios and was a member of the multi-disciplinary team that delivered the new GBD campus. He is currently a part-time design tutor at the Ulster University and has formerly undertaken roles as an assessor for the RIBA regional awards and the RIAI Travelling Scholarship.
Sam Tyler, partner at FCBStudios, has been with the practice since 2001. With a masters degree in Architecture from Yale University and undergraduate studies in History and Classics, he works across a range of typologies and masterplans. He established the practice’s Belfast studio in 2011 to support the delivery of the GBD project. The studio is now working on projects across the UK and in Ireland. Sam is a member of the Ministerial Advisory Group, supporting the government in advancing the quality of Northern Ireland’s built environment.
Mark Hackett is an architect in practice working on the urban issues of Belfast. He was a founder of Forum for Alternative Belfast, a think tank advocating for better urban design solutions for the city. He has been working with Ashton Community Trust since 2015 to create urban change in the York Street Road Interchange and forming connections to the city centre.
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CLIENT ACCOUNT
Professor Alastair Adair
Pro Vice-Chancellor, Ulster University
Autumn 2022 marked the beginning of a historic chapter in the history of Ulster University with the full opening of our new 75,000m2 Belfast campus. One of the largest higher education projects of its kind in Europe, the campus welcomed over 15,000 staff and students into the city centre and heralded the next chapter in the story of our Jordanstown campus and over 120,000 alumni who graduated over the past five decades.
Incorporating the most innovative features of our Magee and Coleraine campuses, the vision for the new Belfast campus was for a creative, innovative, transformative and vibrant environment that would stimulate, inspire and add value to the university’s core activities; acting as a catalyst for wider pan-university development and transformation.
The university’s vision was at the heart of the landmark design for the new campus, developed by architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios; a design that draws on the rich architectural heritage of Belfast and is sensitive to the surrounding cityscape.
The iconic glass lanterns and a series of staggered atria along Frederick Street, mirroring the hills of Belfast, create an exciting new addition to the Belfast skyline. The “campus within a building” concept, comprising four interlinked buildings at York Street, Frederick Street and Donegall Street, creates a modern educational infrastructure encapsulating current and emerging forms of learning that enable students to learn and study in a range of over 300 formal learning environments, adjacent informal and social spaces with access to the latest technologies and facilities and connected flexible “academic neighbourhoods” encouraging interaction and collaboration in bright open areas. Students and staff are overwhelming in their praise of the new campus. One international visitor referred to it as a “living organism” of people and services.
With a focus on flexibility and connectivity, disciplines are linked through a “layer cake” design to promote interdisciplinary, active learning and research. The campus itself is a catalyst, connecting people, businesses, academics and students both to each other and to an ever-increasing range of future opportunities; building skills that can be transferred easily to the workplace, skills that are seldom developed in the lecture theatre alone.
Maximizing the many opportunities presented by this campus design, the university’s associated series of transformation projects were designed to both enhance the staff and student experience within the campus and also to positively impact on the environment and surroundings.
Sustainability was a key transformation focus, with the new citycentre location being a car-free campus and inspiring a model shift in travel patterns to promote wellbeing through public transport use, walking and cycling. Sustainability, too, is built into the design of the building with, for example, a roof masterplan that takes the 19 different roof levels to achieve a mix of solar panels, outdoor social areas and biodiversity roofs combining grassland and wildflower meadow, alpine and boggy heathland and perennials, grasses, shrub and small tree planting.
Another focus of transformation has seen a transition to the digitization of university processes. Efficient use of physical space, use of technology through the provision of a digital timetable and wifi so powerful it can support 25,000 people using five devices at once, create a study and work environment that excites, inspires, motivates and creates spaces that support colleagues and students to work in more collaborative and innovative ways.
The design points to a new vision of how the city might further develop as an attractive and vibrant centre for learning and innovation. The campus represents a nexus of people, place and partnership, producing positive change in the heart of the city and reverses a trend of the past 50 years of universities fleeing the city and moving to the suburbs. It is no surprise that when the university presented its development plans to Belfast City Council in February 2012 the phrase was coined the Regeneration Opportunity of the Century.
In its delivery, the campus represents a model of partnership working with Belfast City Council, government departments, communities and wider stakeholders, all focused on the opportunity presented by Belfast’s new, vibrant city-centre campus to make a lasting, meaningful difference, not just for the people in this city but for everyone across Northern Ireland, this island and further afield.
Alastair Adair
CRITIQUE
TMichael McGarry Professor of Architecture at Queen’s University Belfast
here is a wonderful quintych in Belfast City Hospital by Clement McAleer, modestly entitled Black Mountain, which captures Belfast’s quintessential urban character - a carpet of undulating built low relief speckled with the odd high rise; if extended to the northeast it would have included the City Hospital, Queen’s, Grand Central etc, the cornucopia around Laganside, and of course Harland and Wolff’s oversized yellow limbs. A closer read is of course predicated on the quality of the individual pieces, but isn’t that always the case with architecture.
It’s an endearing, accurate and instructive model - a consistent low carpet (available in two pile depths, suburban and central), with its stubborn erratics, pinched below the southern shoulder of the Antrim plateau, Belfast’s peerless lough, and the lazy hills of north Down. McAleer’s acuity is matched by the inspired selection of an unnamed public servant, a minor decision perhaps, but one that offers an authentic (and ungentrified) reading of Belfast’s urban morphology, a reading of its physicality, a reading beyond any topical matters of taste. McAleers’s image and its selection are happy coincidences of course, but they serve as reminders of the intrinsic value and success of our shared public realm (be it as hosted by Belfast City Hospital, Ulster University or Belfast City Council).
Another inspired decision, but with phenomenal consequences, was to rescue Ulster University from Jordanstown, realise its civic and societal value and embed into the university’s York Street campus in Belfast’s city centre. As of last September, this is the location for 15,000 of its students, a similar population (and potential) to that of Armagh city and a game-changing addition to the city by any standard.
The venue for this transformation is an odd collection of sites, three in number: a difficult triangle squeezed between Frederick Street, York Lane and York Street; a shallow sliver along the north side of York Street running from York Lane to Donegall Street; and the topping out, so to speak, of a pre-existing building at the junction of York Street’s south side and Great Patrick Street. Adjacent to the three sites and to the pre-existing UU building (block 82 in its Orwellian nomenclature) is York Street itself, now sliced from its arterial function by the Great Patrick Street/ Dunbar Link raceway, but nevertheless resolutely holding onto its six vehicular carriageways.
The core of this scheme (on the larger triangular site) is a grand internal axis of movement from York Street northward, parallel to York Lane, across a hewn stone-paved ground floor, leading in and up from York Street under a covered porch and through Belfast’s tallest doors, generously ascending through intermediate levels and arriving at the lowest level of three voids (level 03). These tall voids are squeezed between shallow eastwest orientated blocks overlooked by (very desirable) loft-like gallery spaces perched high above Frederick Street.
The building sustains multiple horizontal thoroughfares, two of which are particularly significant, that at street level and that at the base of these three voids (level 03). These are augmented by an elevated link (level 02) to the pre-existing York Street block 82. York Lane is edged by a continuous linear frontage and benefits from a parallel circulation route at ground level - parallel
to the internal main concourse. In effect this gyratory groundfloor circulation anticipates the inclusion of York Lane within the university’s natural curtilage.
The major civic contribution is this internal world of three voids suspended above two lower offset voids; it’s a clever arrangement, scale is mediated and there is spatial richness and complexity. The key to its comprehension is the floor-to-ceiling height of the upper main floor (level 03), which might have been somewhat taller to ease the diagonal views from the lower voids to the upper three. The tinted glass reinforces the reading of the internal voids as captured external spaces, yet material finishes suggest otherwise and somewhat confuse. The exposed concrete, the control of services, the high build quality; the overall effect is of an evenness of experience, acoustically controlled, spatially punctuated, and calm. The scheme also pushes down into Belfast’s underground, adding (adroitly) yet more density and complexity. Plant is further buried below or concealed at roof level.
The architectural rationale is matched by a pedagogical argument - that density encourages human interaction and participation as well as delivering functional adjacencies. The result here is a building of extraordinary density, a consequence of initial site acquisition decisions.
The external and formal composition is of a continuous perimeter surface defined by rhythmic vertical brick panels, with high-level serial and stepped fully-glazed surfaces at right angles to the perimeter. A horizontal break at mid-height on the elevations gives a register for minor formal moves and mediates the vertical scale. The planar character of the brickwork panels (without reveals) and the fully glazed surfaces dilute any reading of the building’s heft - this is a scheme of taut surfaces interrupted by the carved south-facing entrance on York Street.
The compressed horizontal nature of the accommodation is counterpointed by the elevations’ wayward verticals and these squeeze and shuffle left and right as variations in tempo: the effect is to give visual relief on what are long elevations. A single horizontal gesture occurs as an expressed link corridor perched high over Frederick Street, a device which might have read better as a single incision rather than as projection. There are two other additive formal elements - the tower form perched on the York Street/Donegall Street junction where the offset, relative to its height, is well-judged and hints at a delicate balancing; less successful is the piece perched at the York and Great Patrick Street corner.
In middle and distant views from north and south, the serial and stepping glass elevations achieve an ephemeral quality, where mass is dissolved, presence diluted. Where the massing is read (middle and distant views from east and west) the effect is more deliberate: a modelled silhouette visually referencing the backdrop of the Antrim plateau rather more than the city’s built culture. Views from other orientations highlight the planar quality of the brickwork where it meets glass on razor-like external corners.
The building sliver along the north side of York Street culminates in the aforementioned tower at the junction with Donegall Street - a logical and appropriately scaled response to Buoy Park and to the middle and long distant views from the southern end of Donegall Street. The tower’s accommodation and use are a surprise, offering a management tower detached from the student masses below but most likely this will dilute with time (students being notoriously adverse to relegation). Anyway, the tower certainly does the urban
CRITIQUE
business and would sit well in McAleer’s extended image; less clear is the arrangement at the corner of York and Great Patrick Street, the gesture of the two extra floors cantilevered above the pre-existing seems misplaced and is in any event trumped by the emphatic mass of the new student housing blocks on the north side of Great Patrick Street. Interestingly, these later blocks suggest a very different planning consent context.
McAleer’s image rejoices in Belfast’s incongruities of scale. Harland and Wolff’s finest and huge productions grew within yards (albeit northwards) of two-storey terraced housing, and ironically surviving incongruities of scale are now valued by city planners not because of how they are experienced but rather didactically as exemplar buildings representative of their time (Portview on the Newtownards Road for instance) - aberrant emblematic moments, understood historically and by implication not to be repeated. Is this an adequate response to the particular physicality and landscape of Belfast or is it part of a pervasive consensus about urban design being a practice of finding the point of least resistance rather than seeing urban design as creative agency as our mainland (European) friends might.
The issue of height of course hangs over this scheme’s history, a somewhat quixotic concern in this writer’s opinion given the city’s historical ability to co-exist with titans as captured by our friend McAleer, and indeed the subsequently differently determined decisions in respect of the more recent student housing leviathans to the immediate north and east. The city’s urban self-image seems to have moved from McAleer’s to an uneven lumpiness.
Under an assumed weight of public opinion, the planning consent process, the contingencies of three extremely difficult sites, the contractual absurdities of our procurement regimes, finally we have here public buildings of quality, albeit of extraordinary density, delivered against the odds, and all in all a potentially seismic addition to Belfast’s urban culture and public realm. The tenacity and endurance of the design team to see this project through to completion while simultaneously managing to hold onto its reins is a remarkable achievement.
Clearly this public initiative delivers more than real estate - public institutions and public realm are two sides of the same coin, vital to the city. The potential of this urban campus to contribute to a vibrant public realm is enormous, but this needs supportive and integrated urban design decisions which are beyond any design team’s or university’s remit. First stop has to be York Street pedestrian crossing, stretched as it is over six carriageways, dissecting the university’s campus, and which must surely be a temporary aberration, certainly a current embarrassment, indeed a daft arrangement. York Lane has enormous potential given its orientation and ground-floor uses in the new UU building, and the block to Donegall Street could easily attract complementary uses and yet retain its low density as foil to its new denser neighbour. If these are obvious short-term objectives, then the medium- and long-term wins will follow the reimagining of the city centre’s relationship to its peripheries with the dilution of the Great Patrick Street/Dunbar Link raceway.
This building delivers for Belfast, now it’s up to others, game on.
Michael McGarry
PLANS
South Elevation
North Elevation
Elevation
Site Plan
ARCHITECT’S ACCOUNT
Even in advance of its completion, the transformative power of this project is evident in the regeneration taking place around Ulster University’s new Belfast City Campus.
Now that the final part of the campus redevelopment is complete, the ability of this building to be socially transformative is confirmed. With the arrival of over 15,000 students and staff, the environment around this characterful part of the city has been animated with new life, which will significantly redress some of the damage done to the city by years of declining interest in populating its centre. This project energises the symbiotic relationship between city and university.
Within the University, this project, the transferring of the Jordanstown campus to Belfast, is referred to as the “Greater Belfast Development” (GBD). This highlights the project’s ambition to have an impact that is broader than the provision of a teaching and research facility. There is a recognition that the creation and sharing of knowledge is a key industry, and fundamental to our economy. It, therefore, belongs at the heart of a place. This new and significant piece of architecture is emphatically civic and has a role to play in this.
The building offers a re-appraisal of the University typology, a form which found perhaps its most recognisable expression in the “quad”, to which was added the suburban campus model in the mid-twentieth century. Both of these models created self-contained and rarefied worlds, separated from the life of the city. The new building, located on York, Donegall and Frederick streets, at the edge of the historic city core, is consciously designed to effect a transformation in the culture of place, and to embed the University within the broader community. In contrast with its former remote suburban learning hub, the GBD project creates a positive relationship between the University and the city. Its architecture, promotes permeability and accessibility, as required by the brief, which focused on extending access to higher education. A physical intervention on this scale requires an Architecture that is conceived and constructed as a piece of urban landscape. Initial design considerations prompted the creation of an expressive sculptural form within the city, which could be readily varied to reduce the impact of its mass in deference to historic buildings and datums. The introduction of 12 meter wide column free floor plates to accommodate the brief and future
flexibility rationalised the layouts resulting in a practical arrangement that brings in natural light and provides views out.
The newest development is effectively split in to two wings with departmental and management accommodation occupying the smaller block along York Street and teaching spaces, and laboratories and academic offices occupying the larger block to the north and west. Art studios and research labs occupy the smallest building to the east of York Street, completed in the first phase of development and connected by a bridge to the main blocks. The plan arrangement provides a variety of different scaled spaces which is like a city in miniature. Four main atria connect primary circulation routes and more civic scaled social spaces, with a secondary grid of smaller routes and spaces acting counter to this. The layout promotes accidental encounters and the ability to congregate in large, medium, and small groups – planned and un-planned. As learning models develop and spatial requirements change – this new building is sufficiently flexible to adapt.
An architecture such as this, conceived and constructed as a piece of city landscape or “Geography,” places particular importance on its section. The sectional arrangement responds to environmental imperatives in terms of envelope efficiency and daylight penetration. Large atria sit at level three permitting permeability on the lower floors which is key to the building’s interaction with the city.
External materials respond to the immediate context and allow the new campus to take its position within the buildings that connect the site to the city core. The building’s structure is predominantly reinforced concrete, which has been left uncovered internally, expressing solidity and mass, creating an atmosphere that feels appropriately civic. The envelope is clad predominantly in red brick, which is a natural choice for Belfast and responds to the building’s neighbours on the north side of Royal Avenue, which contains commercial buildings in red brick and sandstone. When viewed from a distance, the articulated red masonry of the building is comfortably redolent of both the larger scale industrial buildings, and the tighter grain of terraced streets and single plot city-centre buildings which contribute to Belfast’s character. The masonry interfaces at sharp angles with glazed facades, a contrast in cladding that reduces the apparent size of the buildings while establishing these buildings as 21st century interventions.
Stephen Gallagher Feilden Clegg
Bradley Studios
Sam Tyler Feilden Clegg
Bradley Studios
The extensive use of glass assists in the optimisation of daylight, which promotes good working conditions, limiting the use of artificial light and contributing positively to a general sense of well-being. This also creates multiple possibilities for establishing new relationships with the city from within the building, with dramatic views of Belfast’s built heritage and landscape available throughout. The deep plan is broken from Level three and above by large scale atria providing daylight and views, but in a way which limits the extent of the external envelope, with resultant energy-in-use benefits. The ground plane of the publicly accessible concourse is laid in Caithness stone, extending the streets of the similarly-paved Cathedral Quarter into the building, enhancing the urban character of the interior.
The “streetscape” character of the building’s interior is intentionally celebrated. It is robust and linked to external public thoroughfares. Timber is used at upper levels to assist in breaking up the large internal surfaces – providing an additional level of tactility and warmth in areas where people interface directly with the building fabric. A restrained palette is used for flooring throughout, with furniture adding a splash of colour to the building which now serves as a backdrop to the spaces animated by University life.
The aim of this building is to create an architecture that responds to the character of Belfast as a place, but which also has its own autonomy, sufficient to ensure that the University maintains a significant identity. This is crucial in a new city landscape where remote working retains a familiarity and digital networks are permitted to dematerialise our physical fabric or need for face-toface meetings. The newly completed city campus, designed by FCBStudios who also monitored compliance during the construction phase (with Scott Tallon Walker and White Ink Architects supporting the main contractor) embraces the strength of the collective and demonstrates architecture’s capacity to improve and transform our cities and lives. This contributes to an outlook for Belfast that is optimistic. It is hoped that time will validate this optimism and that new investment and people will be drawn into the city by the significant intervention of this Greater Belfast Development.
Stephen Gallagher and Sam Tyler
TECHNICAL
UUlster University’s new Belfast campus – the Greater Belfast Development, known as GBD for short – has been designed as a city in miniature providing a range of spaces varying in scale and performance requirements. This demanded a holistic approach to the resolution of complex technical issues at an urban scale as well as the detailed design of the building which was required to respond to both existing and emergent thinking and technologies.
At a strategic level the project, by the very nature of the proposal, adopts a series of measures which are inherently sustainable and resilient: shifting the concentration of student and staff activity to Belfast city centre, where denser development is appropriate, taking advantage of the existing public transport system and encouraging a more effective and efficient use of this infrastructure.
At a more detailed level, the multi-disciplinary engineering design approach was driven by the university’s ambition to deliver an energy-efficient building which achieves a BREEAM Excellent rating. The successful integration of architecture and engineering solutions was therefore critical, requiring intelligent thinking in relation to sustainable material selection, low-energy systems and building management and controls.
Structure
The building is predominantly a reinforced concrete frame structure in bays of 12 x 6m or 15 x 6m. Precast floor slabs typically span 1215m between reinforced concrete beams which span 6m between columns. This design provides a spatial flexibility and is also informed by the project’s sustainability agenda. The internal voids of the oneway spanning slabs reduce the materials used, the embodied carbon and also the self-weight of the floor structure compared to a solid reinforced concrete slab, allowing smaller columns and foundations to be used. The exposed thermal mass of the concrete reduces heating and cooling energy input, integrating the structural design and architectural finish with the energy management strategy.
Steel framing is used for the double-height plantrooms which sit on top of the expressed accommodation “fingers” of the main building, and also for the glazed “lantern” which terminate the view along Royal Avenue.
The superstructure rests on a CFA piling system, typically 600m in
diameter supporting 1200m deep RC pile caps. A large double-storey basement constructed from secant piles extends over much of the footprint of the recently completed block and contains plantrooms and lecture theatres. A capping beam is cast on top of the secant piled wall and a tanked concrete liner wall was cast against the inner face, incorporating a membrane to prevent water ingress.
Passive and Active Sustainable M&E Design
The most sustainable design takes advantage of systems or design approaches that do not require mechanical or technically complex systems. Where possible the GBD project invested in passive measures in order to create a more environmentally resilient design. It is anticipated that the project has reduced carbon emissions sufficient to effect a 25% improvement on building regulations that were current at the time of design.
Passive Measures
The largest block along Frederick Street is a deep plan building which was designed with a relatively small external envelope for the size of the building, making it thermally efficient. The resultant challenge in getting natural light deep into the building has been addressed by a series of north-facing atria which provide natural light without the problems associated with glare. This approach also invites significant energy savings through a reduction in the use of artificial lighting.
The atria are recognised as an important component of the teaching environment and are therefore heated in winter to normal comfort levels, with a consequent simplification of the design of the adjacent spaces e.g. the accommodation ‘fingers’ become internal rather than external spaces, protected from significant solar gains and winter heat losses. The associated environmental control systems therefore have a much reduced requirement for heating, reducing the need for zoning and reheat. Natural ventilation is introduced to the smaller block along York Street at the upper levels where the plan narrows sufficiently to make this feasible.
In all blocks, the envelope was designed to have an excellent thermal performance throughout. During design development, the relationships between improved U-Value and associated heating and cooling loads were analysed to establish the carbon reduction benefits. In addition, there are a series of green and brown roofs across the development to provide water attenuation and habitat formation.
Active Measures
In a well-insulated, low-energy building, the heating of fresh air is a major component of total energy use. The systems have been designed to supply fresh air at a rate which matches occupancy needs and, in winter, to recover heat from return air before it is discharged. The city centre site, and the requirement for atria to provide good links between faculties, resulted in a deep plan building which is not generally suitable for natural ventilation. Variable volume, air handling plant, incorporating heat wheels for optimum heat recovery, supply fresh air and cooling to the building. The mechanical ventilation system has low-energy fans so that the heat recovered in winter more than compensates for the associated fan power. The depth of the building plan dictates that at least some of the lighting installation will be required to be on for the majority of the occupied hours. The energy consumption from lighting and the consequential cooling energy consumption required is expected to be a significant proportion of the building’s total energy use. Key low energy principles have therefore been adopted:
• Use of natural light wherever possible
• Minimising the number of different lamps used
• Using high efficiency lamps and luminaires
• Use of lighting control to minimise energy use
Photovoltaic panels will provide a percentage of the buildings’ overall electricity demand.
While sustainability may be assessed in terms of material selection, heating loads and energy use, the building will be successful only if it is intensively used and enjoyed. In addition to the specific approaches to M&E services, the overall architectural design has purposefully pursued the creation of a varied range of spaces to promote enjoyment and wellbeing. The main circulation spine of the building houses spaces for students and academics to come together and discuss their work, breakout spaces are provided with balcony access and reception areas giving views out over the city and hills. These spaces are oriented towards the south to get the best natural light and warmth from the sun.
GBD has been developed by a multi-disciplinary team to resolve technically complex matters of form, aspect, orientation, fabric selection, transparency and permeability. Time will judge its overall successes, but the evident enjoyment being experienced by users at this early stage must surely merit a celebration of the collaborations that have taken place in its delivery.
Stephen Gallagher
Raised Access Floors, Doors and Staircases
Mastercraft Construction delivered numerous elements over the threeyear period the firm was partnering with Sacyr on the Ulster University Belfast Campus project.
The most significant packages included supplying and installing over 25,000m2 of raised access flooring, 16,000m of skirting, oak balustrade handrails to the atriums and the timber cladding of the feature spiral staircase in the library. The Mastercraft team also installed 1,800 doorsets with associated ironmongery, the steel cladding and oak handrails of the main feature staircases along with the seating and the platforms to the lecture theatres.
The main challenge of the project surrounded the disruption to normal work practices caused by Covid-19 restrictions. “Working onsite through the pandemic was difficult for all sub-contractors, but we maintained a great relationship with Sacyr throughout,” said Micheál O’Kane, Director of Mastercraft Construction. “We introduced new ways of doing things, such as digitally signing in using peoples own device rather than our traditional paper system. Filling out time sheets and carrying out inductions were completed online as well, doing away with unnecessary contact during Covid.”
Mastercraft Construction prides itself as being a multifaceted building company, founded and based in Northern Ireland. The firm’s growth has seen it move from small subcontracts in Belfast to carrying work out on prestigious projects across the UK, Ireland and Europe.
“It was good to be back working on such a significant project in Belfast,” said Micheál. “It is great to be able to see the students using the building after completion. It makes it worthwhile to see the positive impact for the local population and the economy. This is definitely an important moment for Belfast, and we are proud to be a part of it.”
THE COMMUNITY VIEW
The space between
The ‘Bilbao effect’ is being remembered at this point 25 years after the opening of the Guggenheim Museum. This ultimate ‘object building’ nonetheless inhabits a bowl of space where the city grid has been successfully connected to the river, forming new city promenades. The cohort of people involved in the transformed Bilbao are at pains to point out that the beginning of this process was environmental, cleaning the river and industrial air pollution. Work began with connective infrastructure, trains, renewed streets and walks, mirroring Barcelona’s pre-Olympic transformation with its adept focus on the ordinary spaces between buildings in less privileged areas of the city; space for people as Jan Gehl would say.
Similarly in Belfast we are nearly 25 years on from a peace accord. Much international goodwill and special funds arrived during this period. Have we squandered our time and opportunities in the spatial realm? The poorer neighbourhoods beyond Belfast’s city core and moat of ring roads have seen little physical change. Cars still park on endless stretches of grey space. We have few new buildings that stitch the divides, few parks and humane links between the ragged core and where most people live. Change has occurred in pockets of privilege and where the ‘market’ wanted to go, often merely replacing existing fabric of higher urban quality.
There has been a concentration on mostly failed and flawed large projects, floor space, quantity in all its forms, accounting of jobs deemed to have been created. Where urban space exists it needs ‘programmed’ and ‘activated’. There have been public realm schemes but these have been too partial, too expensive, too slow. The programme has run aground. We needed city-wide and mainstreamed change in all street design. There has been no overall spatial plan, no wisdom nor city consensus built in these decades.
Given this poverty of city vision and delivery by an ever-changing plethora of competing agencies, policies and players, it should not surprise us that the decade-long arrival of a large project like the new Ulster University has yet to deliver positive change on the
ground around it. A whole town has decamped into the city in a scattering of over-scaled blocks. Many observed that if height had been constrained these pieces would have been forced to spread, infill, adapt and connect. It is encouraging to see large new footfalls and there must be hope that the city will start to change, but without leadership, clear plans and direction it is not inevitable this story ends in a good place.
A decade ago the non-profit Ashton Community Trust, based near the new campus, advocated a different approach; they brought key stakeholders to visit the Grangegorman campus in Dublin which has a statutory plan process and community agreement. Belatedly an unfunded process, the Campus Community Regeneration Forum was instigated by Belfast City Council. Most agencies have not been forthcoming with solutions and a coalition of the unwilling and unable has dragged out. In hindsight it is apparent that the new campus, like the wider city centre, is set in a civic vacuum - one that is only too apparent now coming out of Covid.
Mark Hackett
Mark is an architect with Ashton Community Trust and involved in community planning in inner north Belfast
Only three shattered streets connect all of north Belfast through the Westlink/M2. The inner ring with wide intimidating junctions and lost buildings causes a second cut. The new University block remains unfinished, an important corner facing Clifton House links two of the gateway streets. Red spaces are impenetrable with areas of unsafe blighted spaces set in a wide area. Many carpark sites remain. The focus on street repair and two new river bridges requires a different city development model.
As the construction of multiple blocks of student housing and the university began, residents nearby started to feel the impacts - first was the wave of rodents. Dust, noise, night-time working and an unprecedented influx of contractors’ vehicles coalesced in what has been the largest construction zone in the city. For residents there is no respite from this process. Ashton worked with Council Environmental Health, residents, the university and contractors to slowly bring some order to the situation in what is an innovative forum that now includes student housing providers as it moves on to address community safety, common concerns and lobbying for improvement. A pocket of residents will now live surrounded by tall blocks cutting out all winter sunlight - a failure of the planning system and architecture professionals to ensure basic urban norms.
The university transport plan appears to have achieved a significant modal shift from car use: a feared influx is not apparent to date. The lesson for the city is that proactivity and plan-led processes do work and are needed.
Few architects today would propose the demolition of the original Orpheus Building. This is progress, but the building is gone. Our equivalent to the current debate on London’s Oxford Street department stores had a vaulted ballroom on the top. With its brass
rails, terrazzo and timber-lined stairs, its rough and tumble use as the Art College would have lent a remarkable centring and grit to the campus. Many remember being drawn into the window displays of ceramic art; today the pavement edge is reflective, flush, mute. Time may yet bring adaption, new doors, spill and clutter.
Immediately to the north of the campus is the blighted York Street Interchange area, an expensive carbon-heavy proposal that could cut off north Belfast forever. Local stakeholders have led on changing this threat from a road scheme to a place-making approach. However, considerable fears remain about the impact of its implementation phase and the risks of urban failure given the poor design and implementation that permeates the city to date. We have to question if its cost is ever justified and if a more contingent approach is needed.
Build it and they will come. It is here. There is hope that with the university now resident in the city core, its students, leaders and best minds will exert their influence and leverage to act as good neighbours, work with others and grasp the challenges of adept and nimble city repair.
Mark Hackett
PUBLIC VIEW
Name: Oyatunjui Adedamola
Occupation: Computer Science student Lives: From Nigeria
“It’s fascinating and the facilities are very impressive. The computer science lab is very well equipped.”
Name: Bernadette McCrudden, Bridget Alexander and grand-daughter, Olivia at Ulster University Lives: Belfast
“I think it’s great, it’s great for the students and then there’s also the apartments for them so it’s a great help. The students are awful good, never any trouble.”
Name: Jeremiah Ojrzynski
Occupation: Photography Student Lives: Originally from Poland
“I really like it. I really like the facilities it has inside, there’s quite a lot of places for students to work and it’s open 24/7 so you can come in anytime you want to use the library. It’s a lovely building, lovely views, it’s very spacious with lots of windows. It’s just beautiful.”
We asked a random selection of people for their thoughts on the new Belfast campus
Name: Aofie Gallagher
Occupation: Interactive Media Student at Ulster University Lives: Ballycastle
“The new building is really nice, it’s more modern and unique. It also has a friendlier environment. It’s nice and cosy and it’s easy to navigate as well.”
Name: Roger Gillespie
Occupation: Chartered Institute of Builders Chairman Lives: Lurgan
“This is my first time in the new building. I was at a talk when it was being built so I saw all the drawings etc but this is my first time seeing it for real. I like it, I went to Ulster University about 25 years ago so it’s very different. I think it helps that I went to the talk about the building so I know that the architecture is meant to match Cave Hill. ”
Name: Brian Byers
Occupation: Employability Services Manager Lives: Originally from the Ards Peninsula
“It’s amazing. Students really seem to be thriving in it and as a member of staff it’s great to be in that atmosphere. I worked in the old UU building and it’s a big change, it’s a completely different and much better learning environment.”
Name: Katie King
Occupation: Second Year Student at Ulster University Lives: Belfast
“I love it, it’s really nice and modern. When you compare the campus in Jordanstown, it felt a lot more secluded in comparison to here in city centre.”
Name: Dr Kyle Boyd
Occupation: Art College Lecturer Lives: Lisburn
“It’s so much more central. A lot of my colleagues who used to work in Jordanstown now work across the road, so instead of having to take a zoom call, I can just call across the road to see them. I use a wheelchair and the old building was so split level, it was a real nightmare to get around in comparison to this new building which is a lot more accessible.”
Name: Hal McGonigle
Occupation: Product Designer Lives: Portstewart
“I feel like this is becoming the new side of Belfast and the architecture of the building is certainly in fitting with this. I’m from a design background and I think it’s a stunning reflection of what is actually taught in the University. I’m interested to see how the city responds to this.”
We are proud to have designed, supplied & installed catering equipment to University of Ulster.
www.stephenscateringequipment.com
sales@stephens-catering.com
Watts were an integral part of the Multi-disciplinary team that significantly expanded the Ulster University Belfast Campus, delivering Blocks C and D.
Specialise in:
• Construction Health and Safety via our Principal Designer service.
• Project Management and Contract Administration
• Building Surveying
• Cost Consultancy including Project costs and advice on revenue and capital costs in the context of building maintenance management.
• Preparation of Planned Preventive Maintenance programmes and sinking fund allocation.
ENERGY CONSULTANCY AND BUILDING COMPLIANCE TESTING
As Northern Ireland’s longest established and leading energy consultancy firm, EBSNI Ltd was uniquely placed to provide a one stop shop for energy consultancy and building compliance testing services for the University of Ulster Belfast Campus.
EBSNI Ltd worked closely with Sacyr and subcontractors from design through to completion to identify the key details and components required to achieve the desired results in accordance with the airtightness and acoustic design criteria.
Through continuous site inspections and sample testing workshops onsite, EBSNI was able to highlight potential problem areas needing particular attention, provide proposed solutions which could be implemented and communicated results using regular onsite testing and feedback reports.
Commenting on the completed project, Peter Quinn, Managing Director of EBSNI Ltd said; “With the spotlight on the current energy crisis, climate change and building energy consumption in particular, it is vitally important that buildings are constructed to minimise air leakage and thermal bridging, thus minimising overall energy consumption. EBSNI Ltd is very proud and privileged to provide such services to one of the most prestigious buildings in Northern Ireland.”
PROJECT TEAM
DESIGN STAGE
Architect Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios McAdam Design
C&S Engineer Mott MacDonald
M&E Engineer Mott MacDonald
Landscape Architect Grant Associates
Planning Consultant Juno Planning
Project Manager Currie & Brown/ WH Stephens
Cost Manager E C Harris
CDM Coordinator Faithful and Gould
Acoustic Engineer Sandy Brown Associates
Fire Engineer Jensen Hughes (formerly JGA Fire)
BREEAM Assessor Arup
Inclusive Access Consultants
David Bonnett Associates
Façade Consultant Montresor Partnership
Transport Consultant Atkins
CONSTRUCTION STAGE
Compliance Monitoring Team
Architect Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios McAdam Design
C&S Engineer Tetratech (formerly WYG) Mott MacDonald (Part)
M&E Engineer Tetratech (formerly WYG) Mott MacDonald (Part)
Façade Consultant Montresor Partnership
Landscape Architect Grant Associates
Planning Consultant Juno Planning
Project Manager Currie & Brown/ WH Stephens
Cost Manager WH Stephens
Principal Designer Faithful and Gould (Part)
Acoustic Engineer Sandy Brown Associates
Fire Engineer Jensen Hughes (formerly JGA Fire)
Vibration Consultant Xi Engineering
Inclusive Access Consultants
David Bonnett Associates
BREEAM Assessor Arup
Design and Build Contractor Team
Main Contractor Sacyr Somague Lagan Somague JV
Architect Scott Tallon Walker White Ink Architects
C&S Engineer RPS
M&E Engineer Promec RPS M&E (Part)
Façade Consultant Murphy Facades
Landscape Architect The Paul Hogarth Company
Acoustic Engineer Sandy Brown Associates
Fire Engineer Jensen Hughes (formerly JGA Fire)
Vibration Consultant Design ID
McAdam
McAdam are delighted to have been local Architectural support to FCB Studios in their design & delivery of the Ulster University Greater Belfast Development
Scott Tallon Walker Architects is proud to have played a pivotal role in delivering the Ulster University Campus by leading the Sacyr Design Team in developing the exemplar FCBS scheme through detail design, construction and completion.
Ulster University - Donal McCann Photography
Trinity College Dublin, Business School - Donal Murphy Photography Queen’s University Belfast, School of Biological Sciences - Paul Burke