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Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus (TQEC)

Bristol, UK

º£½ÇÊÓƵ supported the University of Bristol to realise its vision for a city centre campus by helping to unlock a long abandoned, constrained and challenging site.  

The Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus sits at the heart of the city’s vibrant new Temple Quarter, adjacent to the main railway terminus, Bristol Temple Meads. With improvements to the station planned, as well as new housing, infrastructure, retail and leisure, the Temple Quarter initiative aims to create 22,000 jobs over the lifetime of the project. 

Sitting on the site of the old Royal Mail sorting office, the campus is at the heart of this wider masterplan. A hub for scientific research and general academic endeavour, it will act as a catalyst for regeneration and investment, while also forging closer links between the university, the city and the private sector. 

This pivotal role is reflected in the new building’s position. With one aspect facing the railway station, it is the first landmark passengers coming into Bristol Temple Meads will see. The main front entrance and the new civic square will create a gateway to the station, with extended views across the city’s historic Floating Harbour.  

Challenge

º£½ÇÊÓƵ provided broad multidisciplinary support to realise the campus, which will stand as beacon of education and research across the city. 

The university wanted to create approximately 45,000m² of space designed to accommodate both rapidly evolving scientific research and more general academic use. This meant our designs had to be highly flexible to adapt to fulfil a variety of functions, both now and in the future. Proximity to the railway station posed significant issues when realising vibration sensitive research facilities, as did the site itself which, situated between the river and the Floating Harbour, was susceptible to flooding. 

Our experts would need to help the client and wider design team to navigate a range of uncertainties, many of which had hampered previous attempts to develop the highly constrained plot.   

The high occupancy density, and large number of servers and high-powered computers required by research groups, meant heat gain within the planned building was a significant challenge – especially given the university’s energy target of being net carbon neutral by 2030 across its campuses. Our engineers considered both the technical and commercial aspects of the project when devising solutions to realise the most sustainable campus in the university estate, in line with achieving a BREEAM Excellent t²¹°ù²µ±ð³Ù.&²Ô²ú²õ±è;

Solution

We conducted a series of early enabling investigations and masterplanning works to inform all stakeholders – helping Bristol City Council to unlock the long-underutilised site, while supporting our client, the University of Bristol to understand the full scope of the project and influencing negotiations on the land purchase from the local authority. 

The demolition of the former Royal Mail building was the responsibility of Bristol City Council. Its proximity to the operational railway line presented significant challenges. We had to look closely at the scheduling and sequencing of demolition works to ensure existing material could be safely removed without adversely impacting the Network Rail infrastructure.  

The site had a large, double height basement – large enough for Royal Mail lorries to load and unload beneath the building. Our investigations found this to have a metre-thick reinforced concrete base. We looked at whether the basement could be retained and reused, but given the age of the materials, its ongoing resiliency could not be assured, meaning it would need to be demolished with the rest of the structure and refilled.  

We also had to understand whether the thick concrete base could be retained and safely cored through as part of the construction of the new buildings. Our experts conducted a detailed assessment, including boring test piles, to ascertain that this could be achieved – saving considerable project costs. We then played a key role in developing a complex piling strategy to avoid pre-existing piles and other obstacles to ensure the building could be safely built on top of the existing materials. Various piling techniques were considered before arriving at the decision to retain the existing slab and core through it with new piles for the foundations. 

Our team also liaised closely with the demolition contractor to find the best solution to the challenge of building on a contaminated, restricted brownfield site. We supported the remediation of the soil and the carefully considered piling design reduced the possibility of further contamination and saved the university considerable time as well as money. We also played a key role in developing a strategy to safely remove asbestos shuttering that had been used during the piling of the Royal Mail building in the 1960s.  

Flexibility to accommodate the changing needs of campus users over time was a design imperative. We developed our approach to realise adaptable spaces through extensive consultation with stakeholders to establish which specialist requirements called for a more permanent design response, and where there was opportunity to relax the brief to create spaces that could perform a variety of functions. 

As a result, the new structure will incorporate quantum computing and specialist research labs, as well as general areas for academic work, resulting in a futureproof solution that can respond to changes in need and teaching styles. 

To mitigate flood risk, our team developed flood-resilient solutions for the building and surrounding landscaping, including river flood risk considerations and storm water systems to discharge into the Floating Harbour in a controlled manner.  

We also helped to shape the design of the campus to avoid the more at-risk sections of the Floating Harbour’s historic river wall. These assessments also supported the council’s development of a pontoon walkway along the harbourside. Additionally, we developed riverside flood protection measures that will eventually form part of a wider city centre-wide flood protection system. 

Given the university’s plans to invest in sensitive equipment on the site, our structural engineers recommended a box-in-box construction method for some of the specialist rooms to isolate them from vibration from the neighbouring station and ensure they meet the onerous sound requirements of research environments. 

To minimise the energy consumption and CO₂ emissions of the building, our approach looked to design for performance rather than just compliance. Energy modelling was used to inform design decisions throughout the project. A large, roof mounted PV array is predicted to meet 20% of the building’s annual energy consumption, including that of the energy intensive research equipment. 

The campus will be connected to the Bristol Heat Network being developed by Vattenfall. Our design also looked to capture waste heat and use it to provide heating and hot water to other parts of the building via an onsite energy centre. This also has the capacity to export waste heat back to the district heating network. Our infrastructure team developed a strategy for an additional connection point at the site boundary, to provide a resiliency in the form of temporary plant, to be used in the event of the heat network going down or not being completed in time for the opening of the campus.  

We have also worked with Vattenfall to lead the RIBA stage 3 design of the new Bath Road Energy Centre, which will serve the Temple Quarter. It is set to produce 13MW of low carbon heat generated by air source heat pumps and electric boilers for the new Temple heat network area – producing heating and hot water for up to 2,350 houses and reducing carbon emissions by up to 65%. 

Value

º£½ÇÊÓƵ is at the heart of the collaborative team delivering the vision for the TQEC. Our insight and design played a key role in unlocking this long-underutilised city centre site. This world-leading project represents an opportunity for the University of Bristol to reach into the city and beyond, creating new partnerships and research collaborations that will have national and global significance. 

In a city known for its environmental commitment, having been recognised as European Green Capital in 2015, the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus sets a new precedent for sustainability. The building showcases the very best in low and zero carbon design, without compromising the vision to realise a destination for innovation that will strengthen Bristol’s position as an economic powerhouse. 

º£½ÇÊÓƵ is good at maintaining a consistent team and have the ability to see beyond their own discipline and understand architectural concepts. They showed a lot of ingenuity and are good at thinking outside the box and coming up with creative solutions. They are quite expensive, but they live up to the expectation, the price reflects quality.

Cormac Farrelly, Director and Kirsten Whiteley, Senior Architectural Designer, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris