HawkinsBrown plots Lancaster engineering building

Lancaster University has put forward plans to build a home for its chemical, mechanical, and electrical engineering faculties at its Bailrigg campus, designed by architect Hawkins\Brown.

The 32,000 sq ft development, proposed for a site currently used as netball courts next to the university’s existing Engineering Building, will include research facilities featuring an engineering laboratory which will support robotic manufacturing activities.

There will also be a computing design lab, wet laboratories for the school of chemical engineering, a 3D lecture theatre, and start-up spaces for visiting academics and industrial partners.

Teaching space will be provided throughout the building in the form of teaching labs and offices. There is also a feature staircase running the height of the entrance lobby to provide views into the main general engineering lab; all the different building functions are linked by a central corridor.

The building’s façade is primarily brick-clad with aluminium cladding on the top level; windows will be situated in brick arches, designed in homage to the Victorian ‘Great Exhibition’ at Crystal Palace.

A planning application has now been put forward with the aim of having the building ready to occupy for the 2021/22 academic year.

The professional team also includes Planit IE; Hoare Lea; Faithful + Gould; Scott Hughes Design; Gleeds; Curtins; Sandy Brown; and Simply Ecology.

While the netball courts are being built on, a separate application has been brought forward to provide flood lighting to multi-use courts elsewhere on campus.