{"id":760616,"date":"2024-11-04T08:50:54","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T08:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/?p=760616"},"modified":"2024-11-04T12:23:17","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T12:23:17","slug":"building-study-bennetts-associates-retrofits-the-royal-infirmary-of-edinburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/buildings\/building-study-bennetts-associates-retrofits-the-royal-infirmary-of-edinburgh","title":{"rendered":"Building study: Bennetts Associates retrofits the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"

For \u2006well over a century the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh witnessed the everyday miracles and miseries of medicine. Generations of Edinburgers were born in this sprawling, turreted faux-castle, returning in ill-health or injury to recover or expire.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But, by the mid-2010s, the building itself had succumbed to infirmity. The NHS had departed a decade earlier, leaving tumorous ad-hoc extensions and the scars of ill-conceived renovations. Dry rot was in the timber structures of the wings and attempts at revival via consented plans for housing or a hotel on the site had come to nothing.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then the University of Edinburgh bought the crumbling edifice and enlisted Bennetts Associates to resuscitate it. \u200aAt first the nature of the nascent Edinburgh Futures Institute was vague, even to its architects. But that hardly mattered: constraints on form strangled any notion it would follow function. \u2018There are not many projects of this scale and complexity that you start out on where you don\u2019t really know what it is yet,\u2019 says Bennetts Associates director James Nelmes. \u2018But the fact that the plan is so strong and the building is so powerful told us what we needed to do \u2026 we could get on with it and make robust, big, flexible spaces.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The original four-storey building was completed in 1879 to designs by David Bryce in Scots Baronial style, a Gothic revivalism prevalent in the city before the First World War. \u2018It was a search for a national identity,\u2019 explains practice co-founder Rab Bennetts, \u2018a mixture of French ch\u00e2teau and Scottish castle.\u2019 The building stretches along Lauriston Place in central Edinburgh and its central six-storey clocktower faces north towards the Royal Mile. The structure lies directly south of the 1620s quasi-fortress of George Heriot School, widely understood to be JK Rowling\u2019s inspiration for Hogwarts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like the city itself, the building is arranged along an east-west axis, with a narrow 130m-long corridor providing circulation between six wings: four branching northward from the spine, two extending south. Each wing contains double-height wards and terminates with a pair of circular turrets, topped with finialed and lucarned conical slate roofs.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Over time the brief for its new life became less woolly: the Edinburgh Futures Institute was to be a new faculty for interdisciplinary teaching and research into major global health issues. The fixed-up building needed abundant, publicly accessible work space, a variety of teaching, events and office spaces, as well as a caf\u00e9.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

An easy early move for Bennetts Associates was to slice off the post-war carbuncles, including link buildings, rooftop cabins, smokers\u2019 balconies and a developer\u2019s marketing suite. Then came three big design decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first was to reinstate the never-used main entrance in the central clock tower. Leading up to it, Bennetts created a new public square, which slopes up from the road, providing disability access. It was a bold move, which required a fight to remove a listed 1850s gatehouse previously on the site (but now retained in storage). The resulting public space is smart and minimal: devoid of planting; tailored for pop-up events; and not yet claimed by the city, which is invited in.<\/span><\/p>\n

The real cunning of the square is that it sits atop a freshly excavated two-storey auditorium with 450 retractable seats. This pedagogic cavern, accessible internally or from the square, is now by far the biggest room in the building but is tucked away. \u2018Light boxes\u2019 flanking the square admit daylight to this subterranean space and give the square \u2018a sense of symmetry and formality\u2019, according to Bennetts, although, arguably, they are slightly at odds with the baronial composition. The light boxes are effective even on a grey Edinburgh day, saving visitors the poverty of artificial-only light below ground. The decor here is slick, featuring exposed concrete columns and beams, dark timber flooring and waxed steel stairs to upper levels. \u2018Because the building is so powerful and strong we felt it could take quite robust materials against it,\u2019 explains Nelmes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bennetts Associates\u2019 second major operation was on the building\u2019s 130m-long spine. \u2018The corridor is quite an imposition for an educational institution,\u2019 says Bennetts. \u2018One of our ideas was to double the width of it, make it more sociable and add things to it.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

The spine is now lit by south-facing glazing, while pockets of work and collaboration spaces abound in the extended volume. The original stone wall, gashed where later extensions have been removed, is largely left in situ mid-corridor. New concrete columns stand aside, delineating the stitchwork between old and new. The extended volume sometimes gives way to vast spaces above, notably around newly inserted stairs, while occasional vistas provide additional treats.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The length of the corridor is painted blue-grey, but specific junctions \u2013 where the wings are accessed \u2013 are coded with different colours to aid legibility. Much of the floor is now stone-flagged, exhumed from the fabric and left exposed for the first time. Similarly, in the parts of corridor between the entrances to the former wards, original vaulted brick ceilings are now celebrated, though they were never intended to be.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Bennetts\u2019 final major intervention was to in-fill between the pairs of wings which stretch north. At lower levels these new volumes contain modern lecture rooms which can hold up to 60 people. Looking upwards, the floor plates reduce in area, creating light wells for the benefit of lower levels and a balcony on the top floor, where venue spaces boast views towards Edinburgh Castle.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Light and volume intersect with history well in Bennetts\u2019 various extensions, creating fuller modern university spaces from an elongated original plan. Externally, however, the new additions are glazed with exposed GRC columns and the effect is no great compliment to the older fa\u00e7ade. The extensions appear dark and rectilinear next to the lighter masonry, but this does nevertheless achieve some sense of subservience. The juxtaposition is most pronounced on the southern fa\u00e7ade, which was only designed to be viewed obliquely. This was because a plot just south of the building had been expected to be developed, though this is now uncertain after the university acquired it.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the architect has restored much: the slate roof was taken off and relaid, finials were replaced and decorative stonework remade. Around 50 per cent of the building\u2019s timber floors had to be removed, as did most of the plaster wall linings. The clocktower, formerly used as an office space, has been preserved for visitor tours, although the lack of an escape stair makes it unsuitable for more general use. The former wards have been stripped back to resemble their tall, white original spaces. Most have become teaching spaces. Lifts have been slotted into hollowed-out shafts at the entrance to the wards and are thus dotted around the building. One of each pair of turrets on the wings has had floors removed to be replaced by a spiral fire escape stair \u2013 a nod to historical Scottish castle design. Each corresponding turret provides idiosyncratic meeting or work spaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There was plenty to contend with on the build. The building drops by a metre over the length of its main spine and tolerances and wall thicknesses were \u2018all over the place\u2019, according to Bennetts. This meant design work that ought to have been repetitive became bespoke. More rot was discovered and so, at a time of global pandemic and materials shortages, it is little surprise that construction cost 50 per cent more than expected, rising to a total of \u00a3120 million.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contrary to its name, the resulting scheme does not scream of \u2018the future\u2019. However, it is certainly forward-looking in its bold but sensitive collaboration with the past. To reduce energy use, much of the building uses natural ventilation; masonry walls have been insulated and the scheme is hooked up to the university\u2019s combined heat and power plant.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The architects might well have chosen timber or stone, rather than concrete, for the extensions if designing today but, at 361 kg\/CO<\/span>2<\/sub><\/span>\/m2<\/sup>, the scheme\u2019s up-front embodied carbon emissions still compare favourably with a new-build equivalent \u2013 all the more impressive, given the tall volumes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The almighty stone corpus is therefore reanimated for a public which \u2013 whether it knows it or not \u2013 has an unusual degree of access to most of the building\u2019s interior, where Bennetts Associates\u2019 architectural surgery is best appreciated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018This was certainly not a preservation: the building has undergone tremendous change,\u2019 concludes Bennetts. \u2018You might expect a bit more resistance to a degree of change such as this. But the building was so wrecked, it was an opportunity to change its identity.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Before construction (credit: Keith Hunter)<\/em><\/p>\n\t

<\/p><\/p><\/div>\n

Project data<\/span><\/h3>\n

Start on site:<\/strong> \u200aMarch 2019
\nCompletion:<\/b> \u200aJuly 2024
\nGross internal floor area:<\/b> \u200a21,355m2<\/sup>
\nConstruction cost:<\/b> \u200aUndisclosed
\nArchitect:<\/b> \u200aBennetts Associates
\nConservation architect:<\/b> Consarc Design Group
\nClient:<\/b> The University of Edinburgh
\nStructural engineer:<\/b> \u200aWill Rudd
\nM&E consultant:<\/b> AtkinsR\u00e9alis
\nQuantity surveyor:<\/b> Thomson Bethune
\nProject manager:<\/b> AtkinsR\u00e9alis
\nPrincipal designer:<\/b> AtkinsR\u00e9alis
\nCDM co-ordinator:<\/b> AtkinsR\u00e9alis
\nLandscape architect:<\/b> Ironside Farrar
\nAcoustic consultant:<\/b> Robin Mackenzie Partnership (RMP)
\nFire engineer:<\/b> Atelier Ten
\nClerk of works:<\/b> KTN Architects
\nMain contractor:<\/b> \u200aBalfour Beatty
\nCAD software used:<\/b> \u200aRevit<\/p>\n

Sustainability data<\/span><\/h3>\n

Percentage of floor area with daylight factor >2%:<\/b> Circa 60% of floorplate obtains a daylight factor of 2% or more
\nUp-front embodied carbon: <\/b>361 kgCO2<\/sub><\/span>e\/m2<\/sup>
\nWhole-life carbon: <\/b>603 kgCO2<\/sub><\/span>e\/m2<\/sup>
\nPredicted design life:<\/b> Structure: 100 years, roofs: 100 years, cladding: 60 years, M&E mechanical major items: 20-25 years, M&E mechanical terminal units: 15 years, M&E electrical terminal units: 15 years, floor finishes: 10 years, other finishes: 15 years, lifts: 25 years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For \u2006well over a century the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh witnessed the everyday miracles and miseries of medicine. Generations of Edinburgers were born in this sprawling, turreted faux-castle, returning in ill-health or injury to recover or expire.\u00a0 But, by the mid-2010s, the building itself had succumbed to infirmity. The NHS had departed a decade earlier, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72402,"featured_media":762367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"ep_exclude_from_search":false},"categories":[706],"tags":[1558,1350,3689,1342],"yoast_head":"\nBuilding study: Bennetts Associates retrofits the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With its Edinburgh Futures Institute retrofit, Bennetts Associates has breathed new life into one of the Scottish capital\u2019s major architectural landmarks\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/buildings\/building-study-bennetts-associates-retrofits-the-royal-infirmary-of-edinburgh\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta 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