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NEWS ADAPTIVE REUSE
Edinburgh hospital reused as university site
Edinburgh University’s Futures Institute (EFI), an adaptive reuse of a 19th century hospital, has completed nine years after the project commenced in 2015. The design by Bennetts Associates “revives the key qualities of the existing building and transforms it through new uses, interventions and extensions.” David Bryce’s original design in the Scotch Baronial style was completed in 1879 and featured 20 Nightingale wards in six wings, connected by long corridors to keep cross-contamination to a minimum. When the NHS vacated the former Royal Infi rmary in 2003, it left the Category A listed building in poor condition, with numerous unsympathetic extensions, asbestos, dry rot and potential structural failure.
The transformation from a surgical hospital to the Futures Institute is “evident at several levels,” says the practice. The building has been “stripped of its later accretions, so that the external and internal forms could once again be seen at their most impressive.” This ranged from removal of extensions and mezzanine levels to suspended ceilings and services. A comprehensive programme of repair and reconstruction was implemented, requiring substantial replacement of rotten fl oors, asbestos removal, strengthening of
SPORTS & LEISURE
Foster + Partners to lead masterplan for land surrounding Old Trafford
Foster + Partners has been appointed by Manchester United to develop a masterplan for land around Old Trafford Stadium – known as Old Trafford Stadium District.
The project encompasses the land owned by Manchester United FC that surrounds the existing stadium. The aim be to design a “world-class football
destination and home for Manchester United fans.” The wider masterplan comprises mixed-use developments which will benefi t the local community, attract new residents, increase job provision, and “make it a vibrant destination for visitors from Manchester, the UK and globally.” The exercise will “include substantial engagement with fans, community
walls and roofs, insulation of all external surfaces and reinstatement of natural ventilation. New accommodation was added on either side of the main corridor, to replace the separation required by the hospital with the functional integration, physical connections, social gathering spaces, larger rooms for 200 seats and touch-down areas needed by the Futures Institute. The wards themselves were converted to fl exible work and teaching
spaces that were faithful to the elegant Nightingale proportions.
© Hufton+Crow
After years of accessing the building through A&E to the rear, the neglected main entrance was reopened and rejuvenated, making the clocktower the focal point. To symbolise the building’s change of identity, a new pedestrian park that adds to Edinburgh’s public realm and connects the Futures Institute to the city. It is now described as ‘the front door to the University’. And below the square within the slope of the site, a 450-seat event space was constructed. Projecting ‘light boxes’ enhance the sense of space and help to demarcate the public square to the north, whilst “direct, grade level connections punch through the thick clocktower walls to the south.” Edinburgh Futures Institute now contains a “range of spatial experiences with proportions, materiality and variety that are unlike anything that could be achieved with an equivalent newbuild,” says Bennetts. It demonstrates that low carbon-re-use of an existing building can be “stimulating and responsible” and done “without detriment to the original.”
members, local authorities and the Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force, whose feedback and insights will be incorporated into the masterplan design.” The stadium itself will not form part of this exercise – “its design will begin once the club has decided on the development options,” commented Fosters, adding “a world-class stadium will ultimately sit at the heart of this ambitious new masterplan, as a catalyst for wider regeneration. Foster + Partners will also provide recommendations on how the Stadium District masterplan can “complement and align with the existing Trafford Wharfside masterplan.”
© Keith Hunter
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
ADF OCTOBER 2024
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