PROJECT REPORT: EDUCATION & RESEARCH FACILITIES 23
EDINBURGH FUTURES INSTITUTE EDINBURGH
Fit for a healthier future
The transformation of Edinburgh’s long-empty Royal Infi rmary creates a sustainable new home for the University’s new Futures Institute, a fl exible workspace and education facility designed by Bennetts Associates. James Parker reports.
A
ccording to the University of Edinburgh, the core mission of its new ‘Futures Institute,’ located
within the city’s formerly derelict, now refurbished Royal Infi rmary, is to “support collaboration on social challenges,” as well as provide workspaces for key business sectors for the city. It is a space that brings public, private, and third sector practitioners together with researchers, students, and civic society to “tackle complex problems,” including via “clusters of co-located research” with industry, supported by a large amount of IT including audio/visual resources. The project to restore this famous but neglected building could be described both as a complex problem and a “social challenge,” with it having deteriorated into an eyesore over the years, becoming a major blemish on the face of the city ever since the NHS exited its doors in 2003.
The key challenge for architect Bennetts Associates was therefore to retain and restore a much loved Edinburgh asset, but add to it with carefully crafted extensions to make it fi t for a digitally led, hybrid set of functions, bridging the public and private sector. This was a task the practice, with its strong experience in reuse of heritage buildings in various sectors, relished as it entered the design competition for the building’s refurbishment. Another key attraction was the fact the building would also be largely opened to the public in its new guise, donating a key asset back to the city.
ADF JANUARY 2025
Background & Brief The complex refurbishment of the Category A listed former Royal Infi rmary began in 2015, and the building fi nally completed in 2024.. The architects say it “revives the key qualities of the existing building and transforms it through new uses, interventions and extensions.” The original ‘Scotch Baronial’ building designed by David Bryce was completed in 1879, including an interconnecting shallow plan of long corridors connecting a series of spacious Nightingale wards, designed to minimise cross-infection risk. The quality of these spaces and the overall functional plan have been exploited to the full in the new use as the Futures Institute, including in the diverse array of companies occupying co- working spaces located in the former wards. A product of the Data Driven Innovation programme running across Edinburgh University, the Edinburgh Futures Institute supports four sectors that are critical to the local and regional economy: fi nancial services and fi ntech, public services, creative industries, and tourism, festivals and travel. It forms a key part of the Quartermile development in the Lauriston area of the city.
Despite the somewhat fl amboyant, castle-like exterior, the building was “remarkably functional and inventive,” say the architects. Typical of many of the ‘Nightingale design’ healthcare buildings of the era, its high windows provide excellent levels of daylight, and it had a wind-driven ventilation system, as well as connections
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The project to restore this famous but neglected building could be described both as a complex problem and a “social challenge,” with it having deteriorated into an eyesore over the years
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