McBains has been shortlisted for a Life Sciences and Research Clusters Award, as part of the conference run by Construction News and Property Week.
McBains has been nominated within the ‘Best New Campus Development’ category, for its design of the UKAEA STEP Offices Building at the Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire.
The project includes a new headquarters building for 600 occupants, external landscaped plaza and terraces, cyclist facilities, as well as two multi-storey car parking hubs.
Prioritising staff and user wellness, and supporting a modal shift towards a vehicle-free campus centre, the UKAEA STEP Offices Building delivers a catalytic scheme for the wider Culham Science Centre campus; unlocking the western flank of the masterplan and facilitating several campus aspirations being achieved.
The building’s design and positioning on site provides generous frontages to address key arterial routes through the campus, allowing good visibility, improved wayfinding and safe, segregated movements.
‘Green connector’ corridors link through to the wider campus, and an entrance sequence through a landscaped plaza provides a sense of arrival and a destination with real civic presence, commensurate with the world leading research and development that UKAEA undertake.
These principles, anchored in the site arrangement, build on the original concept philosophy for the building itself, with the idea of providing spaces where ‘productive collisions’ can occur; allowing opportunities for collaboration, creativity and knowledge sharing.
The scheme prioritises staff health and wellbeing, with the atrium, office and meeting spaces flooded with natural daylight, and large apertures affording views out to the surrounding green landscape to help connect users to nature, offering a counterpoint in which to nurture a highly creative environment. The pockets of breakout spaces provided throughout help to activate the development with a lively and energetic atmosphere where innovation can thrive.
The high-performance building is designed to a BREEAM Excellent target rating and achieve a 42% reduction in regulated carbon emissions above Part L baseline, by adopting a fabric first approach. Parametric analysis technology informed a detailed façade optimisation study, paired with a highly insulated envelope and low air tightness, hybrid mechanical ventilation with heat recovery and efficient air source heat pumps, high efficacy luminaires and controls, and a large array of photovoltaics.
Anna Kealey, Director at McBains, commented: “We’re extremely proud that this flagship project for UKAEA has received industry recognition through this award shortlisting.
“The scheme has been designed to promote productive collisions between users, to foster collaboration and innovative thinking in a sustainable, high-performance building that prioritises staff and user wellness”.
McBains provided architecture, cost management, structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, lead designer, principal designer and BIM services to the scheme.
