Building Design Partnership - General Development - Edinburgh, Napier University

Date: 14 Jan 2002

BDP has received Planning Approval and Listed Building Consent for the creation of a new Business School at Napier University's Craiglockhart campus in Edinburgh. The site lies to the west of Craiglockhart Hill and is dominated by the B-listed former hydropathic hospital building dating from 1880 which famously accommodated the War Poets (Owen and Sassoon) during the First World War. Subsequent site development - with the exception of the chapel added in 1933 - has been carried out in a piecemeal fashion which has led to an unattractive and disorganised building group to the east of the main building.

A survey of the existing structures to ascertain their suitability for various educational functions led the design team to propose that the blocks to the east of the main building be removed to create a site for redevelopment. This strategy positively engages the existing building as a key component in the new development. The covered space between the existing building and the new flexible teaching block at the base of Craiglockhart Hill will accommodate learning resource and computing facilities and two new lecture theatres.

John McManus, BDP Director for the project said, "This new central space provides focus and orientation for the student and expresses the concentration of learning activities. The titanium-clad 200 seat lecture theatre floating over the new entrance provides the University with a highly iconic marker for their new Business School".

BDP provided all architectural and engineering inputs for the new building. Gardiner and Theobald provided cost consultancy services. The Business School is due for completion in August 2003, and the construction cost is approximately. £13,000,000.

Craiglockhart Campus

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