The Arthur Willis Environment Centre, part of the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield, is a modern building in every sense of the word – and more. Principal contractor, William Birch & Sons, pulled out all the stops to ensure that this unusual design was interpreted down to the last detail. The centre will be used to replicate certain environmental areas of the world using social insects such as bees and ants, as well as grasses, to monitor the effects of climate change.
Central to the facility is a £1 million bespoke ‘Grodome’ (or greenhouse), which is able to control temperatures from +15oC to +35oC within 16 discrete units. The adjacent single-storey steel frame laboratory has a host of contemporary features, including copper cladding, cedar cladding, stone render, a green roof and zinc overhang – not to mention a glass wall that slopes at an aesthetically pleasing 10 degrees. Designed by Matt Hutton of Bond Bryan, on behalf of the client, Richard Hawley, University of Sheffield, this is the second recent collaboration between the two organisations.
But, it’s what’s on the inside and hidden out of sight that makes the facility really fascinating. Internally, the laboratory is fitted out with very high specification equipment, fume cupboards and gas exchange manifolds. There are two state-of-the-art constant temperature rooms and an extensive and complex management system which links back into the university’s main monitoring system.
Dig deeper and the drains reveal another dimension to the contract, as Alan Horsley, William Birch’s contract manager, explained: “The nature of the work is highly sensitive and any external contamination would be disastrous to the results, so much so that we had to source special ‘triple filter’ gulleys for the drains that will prevent anything – even tiny plant seeds – from leaving, or entering, the facility.”
Laboratory superintendent, Darren Rose, who specified the facility and will be responsible for running and managing it, was so keen to see it take shape that he admits to having worn a furrow on his daily two-mile round trip to and from the building site! However, he is delighted with the results and is looking forward to it being fully operational. “From my perspective, it has been a very easy build, despite the stringent preventative measures we had to incorporate into the design to ensure that we could get the levels of consistency that are so crucial to our research. For example, experiments might be repeated six months and two years apart and we have to be absolutely certain that we can get exact replication,” he said.
William Birch started work on site in June 2007 and as part of the full design and build contract carried out extensive civils enabling work – improved access to the site, removed and re-compacted the brick infill, stone column piles, and diverted a culvert within the site.
Handover was taken on 16 January 2009.
This is William Birch’s third job for Sheffield University, the previous two being a listed building refurbishment and new build extension for the Humanities Research Institute, and civil work for a new access road at Western Park.
