Essex Business School

About The Client

Plans were passed in 2013 for the construction of a three storey educational building and a single storey MBA lecture theatre, scheduled to be opened in the autumn of 2015 at the University of Essex.

The project came as a result of a £5 million award which was granted to Essex from the Higher Education Funding Council for England – the highest award available for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) facilities. The University matched funded with an additional £5 million to build the interdisciplinary teaching facility.

The Brief

Morgan Sindall appointed B&K Structures to provide the glulam, steel, CLT and wall cassettes for the build. The basis of the main building was a curved structure; a structure that would use predominantly Whitewood Spruce glulam, with the exception of the winter garden area that used Larch glulam.

The key driver for the project was to create the first zero carbon business school in the UK – a building that reflected the university’s vision for growth, excellence and sustainability. The facilities were designed to provide students, staff and business partners with innovative spaces in a collaborative environment that centred on a winter garden in an Eden Project style dome.

The Solution

The main lecture theatre is formed through a geodesic structure – comprising glulam, steel nodes, CLT and wall cassettes. The wall cassette panels were assembled between the raking glulam columns. Standard larch glulam sized beams were double glued together to achieve the long curved members and steel and iroko timber were then used to construct an external ramp for disabled access.

When completed, the garden acted as a buffer zone – supporting the passive ventilation and heating strategy of the building, whilst also providing a striking arrival and meeting space. The roof of the business school was covered in photovoltaics – taking full advantage of the south orientation in order to provide renewable energy for combined heat and power installation. This enabled the net export of energy to offset carbon emissions from the building.

The new carbon-neutral build will showcase renewable technologies in action with the aim of achieving a BREEAM rating of Excellent. It will also feature a range of innovative sustainable elements, including the green sedum roof, solar panels and sustainably sourced materials.