Public buildings
From education and learning to arts and culture, public buildings all have their own performance demands. With such an important role to play in society, they must overcome significant design challenges to provide the right function for every member of the community.
Public buildings can serve as longstanding community hubs or focal points for urban renewal and regeneration, and design is crucial to their success.
Accessibility and inclusivity are core elements to these buildings, both internally and externally. This requirement sits alongside user experience, safety and security, health and wellbeing, but there is also an increasing need for energy efficiency and climate resilience.
Technical demands on public buildings range from efficiencies gained through standardisation and repeatability, for example across school building programmes, to the highly specialised requirements of museum display and conservation.
That’s why cross-disciplinary and connected thinking is required to realise synergies between building functions and the local environment.
What can we do for you?
Deliver social value
People are at the heart of every design – so we design with their needs and aspirations front of mind. Where appropriate, we bring expertise in stakeholder engagement and communication alongside our technical skills, to develop solutions that not only work for users but will exceed their expectations and delight them. Because when buildings add social value, they add value for you too, increasing footfall and creating vibrant social hubs.
Embed sustainability
Planning and designing for sustainability creates buildings that are adaptable to changing uses, social needs, technologies and environmental conditions. It ensures that buildings are healthy – for people and the environment. It helps you align with decarbonisation targets and improve climate resilience. And it anticipates maintenance, repair and ultimate deconstruction, so that work can be carried out safely, affordably and using resources responsibly.
Develop great design
We work with many of the world’s leading architects to create public buildings that improve society. Our multidisciplinary breadth and depth combined with our global footprint enable us to transfer innovation and best practice to new projects, helping you attain award-winning design quality, outstanding technical performance and excellent value for money.
GenZero Schools, UK. We developed a standardised design for schools which embraces net zero while creating great places for students and teachers.
Sustainable public building design and engineering
Our performance engineering approach applies to new and existing buildings.
Our experience
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GenZero Schools, UKWe developed a standardised design for schools which embraces net zero while creating great places for students and teachers. GenZero builds on our track record in creating standardised designs for the Priority School Building Programme, which delivered 90 primary schools using offsite solutions in just five years.
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Len Lye Centre, New Plymouth, New ZealandLen Lye was one of New Zealand’s most important artists, known internationally for his experimental films and kinetic sculptures. His hometown, New Plymouth, commissioned the country’s first dedicated single-artist gallery to raise its profile as a leading cultural city. Reflecting the intensity, energy and excitement of Len Lye’s work, we designed a stainless steel facade that is aesthetically simple but technically ingenious and compatible with local fabrication capability.
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Royal College of Art Battersea campus, London, UKWe provided multidisciplinary engineering for a major new research and development campus in central London, which the Royal College of Art describes as its most significant project ever. The college is a keystone institution in the regeneration of the wider Battersea area, requiring a building that makes a strong architectural statement, is sympathetic to its area, provides outstanding teaching, learning and studio spaces for students, and encourages public interest and engagement.
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Shakespeare North Playhouse, Prescot, UKShakespeare North is a cultural venue attracting more than 100,000 visitors to the town each year, giving a £5.3M annual boost to the local economy. We provided multidisciplinary engineering design on the project. At its heart is a 460-seat timber performance space that is a faithful recreation of an Elizabethan design, in homage to the theatre that once stood in Prescot 400 years ago. The building also features catering facilities, teaching spaces, a dance studio and a landscaped performance garden.
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Sydney Fish Market, AustraliaWhen the New South Wales government asked us to help create a bold new building to rehouse top tourist destination Sydney Fish Market as the catalyst for a multimillion-dollar regeneration of the area, we responded with an innovative and sustainable approach. We helped our client define what the new building could be and supported the tendering process. We are the structural, civil and marine engineer for the three-year tender design phase and now sit client side, assuring the design as technical adviser.
STEPS
STEPS was the first solution to map people in motion, from transportation interfaces to stadium evacuation. STEPS realistically simulates pedestrian movements to test design layouts and operational plans. It enables users to understand how people will act in daily situations and in emergencies.
