Overview
Masterplanning to enable the future growth of the UK’s world-leading national research facilities at RAL, Daresbury, UK ATC and Edinburgh. We led a team which prepared a comprehensive development plan at each of these complex sites and are supporting the implementation stages to create more sustainable, future-proofed, and attractive research campuses.
Project Highlights
Clients
UKRI / Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Date
2021 - Present
Scale
300,000m² of research floorspace nationally
David Lock Associates have been instrumental in creating robust and deliverable Development Plans to guide the future of our sites, working closely with us to ensure our world-leading science can continue into the future. They understand how to use design to deliver our objective of world-class places within which the next generation of scientists can work.
Paul Cross, Head of Capital Development, STFC
The Project
The UK is home to multiple internationally significant world class research facilities. Operated by UKRI's STFC, national sites including RAL in Oxfordshire, Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, and the UK ATC in Edinburgh, have been the home to some of the most significant scientific discoveries of the 20th and 21st centuries. STFC commissioned comprehensive Development Plans to guide the future of each facility and allow them to respond to continued growth pressures, spatial limitations, complex estates and a need to transition to Net Zero.
The Process
We led the development planning process, working with the STFC Estates and wider leadership team, to create a suite of materials that will guide and sustain future growth at the sites. Combining clear plans, visualisations, design guidance and supplementary documentation, the frameworks have brought together the three themes of Science, People and Environment. The Development Plans for each site successfully blend the technical requirements of complex operational facilities, with placemaking, architectural, and urban design guidance, to create a better workplace for the thousands of researchers that use them every day, and provide a framework to facilitate the long-term continuation of cutting-edge science, making a valuable contribution to the UK economy and the progression of fundamental research.
We continue to support STFC through the ongoing implementation of the Development Plans, creating detailed landscape and public realm proposals, wayfinding strategies, local authority engagement, and supporting business case development for phasing, ultimately transitioning the estate to Net Zero by 2040, as well as facilitating placemaking transformations.