- Workplace
- Workplace
Since its foundation in 1946 as the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell Campus in Oxfordshire has become a pioneering hub for scientific research. ADP has designed several projects on the campus’ Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, so when Harwell Campus commissioned us to design the shell and core of a new high-quality office building, we already had a multilayered understanding of the site’s context.
The client was keen for the building to sit harmoniously within its parkland surroundings, while carving out a distinctive identity of its own. These surroundings also informed the sustainability strategy for the building, which needed to balance consideration of solar gains with views out over the stunning landscape.
The project has played to our strengths in workplace design, with a flexible, future-focused vision blending traditional facilities with hot desks and group meeting spaces. To enable this kind of flexibility, it was essential to get the building’s grid right, and to provide an environment with benefits at a human scale. We took the decision to place a large lightwell at the centre of the block, surrounded by two circulation cores leading to a shared entrance.
The incoming tenant shared the Campus’ sustainability ambitions. We used our experience across a range of standards – including BREEAM and Passivhaus – to realise ambitions in every detail of the design, from the simple form and concrete structure through to smart services, on-site renewables, and future flexibility.
The result is a building that benefits both users and its environment – while acting as a bold new addition to Harwell Campus’ historic community.
The workshop building design works extremely hard, not only to sit sensitively in its historic context and meet the functional requirements necessary to run the engineering programmes but also to achieve a high level of sustainable design through the enhanced thermal envelope and a breathing façade, which is required to support the engine test cells and wind tunnels housed within.
