We were delighted to be an integral part of the Glasgow Learning Quarter Consortium professional team that delivered the City of Glasgow College new City Campus.

The City Campus, located on Cathedral Street in the city centre, comprises the keystone facility of the college, creating some 56,400m² GIFA distributed over a ground floor and eleven suspended floors. The completed facility accommodates the major faculties of building, business, creative industries, education / society and leisure / lifestyle.

The building supports 1,000 staff and 40,000 students. The building’s architectural design is substantially defined by an impressive feature atrium (which can double as exhibition / informal teaching space) and an external courtyard. Both these passive features significantly support natural daylight penetration and natural / cross-flow ventilation.

The diverse mix of teaching faculties contained within the one building attracts a truly diverse and specific schedule of accommodation, many of which have very specific MEP considerations. Examples being a TV studio, editing suites, teaching kitchens, teaching bakeries, photography studios, manufacturing workshops and training restaurant, to name a few.

We were responsible for the full technical design of the MEP services including mechanical ventilation, space heating, comfort cooling, DX ICT cooling, public health, electrical power, artificial lighting, fire alarms ICT, BEMS and vertical transportation.

We, along with the project architects, employed the use of Autodesk Revit and 3D work to specifically generate fully elevated room layouts that supported the contractor as well as providing a valuable resource for client approval and coordination work-streams.

The MEP design for the college fully embraces a low energy/carbon ethos. Key examples being;

• LED lighting.

• Variable volume air systems (occupancy led).

• Variable volume water systems.

• Solar thermal.

• Rooftop photovoltaics.

• Biodiesel CHP.

• Energy/Heat metering.

The building has been formally assessed under BREEAM 2008 (Education), achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating for the design stage.

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Craig and Allan led their Team(s)to the quality standard that we knew they would. The RDD process was challenging for all of us and it's to the Teams credit that they stuck with it through to the end after some initial difficulties. The overall appreciation for the Project from the City of Glasgow College is testament to the input from the H&K team.