Education Today Education Today Magazine
The University of the West of England (UWE) has invested in a new School of Engineering with the commitment to increase the number of women and people from underrepresented groups working in the sector, in particular aerospace.
The multi-million-pound building, located at the Frenchay campus in Bristol, has enabled it to expand its intake of students to 1,600. This contributes to the University’s vision of promoting multi-disciplinary, collaborative learning and supporting the predicted increase in demand for skilled engineering graduates across the region.
Set over four floors, the 8,500 mt sq, modern building houses many different engineering disciplines in a contemporary space. The site features teaching studios, modelling and simulation suites, laboratories, specialist workshops, and student learning zones, accommodating many engineering disciplines such as composite manufacturing, machining, and metrology. Eunan Scanlon, Technical Director – Building Performance Engineering, Hydrock comments, “Hydrock provided multidisciplinary services to UWE on their new state-of-the-art Engineering building.
We developed the lighting and lighting controls strategy in collaboration with AHR Architects, UWE stakeholders and Zumtobel. The engineering building comprises of a central Atrium with perimeter engineering facilities, with hard engineering workshops on the ground floor then labs and teaching spaces on the upper floors. From the concept we worked up lighting solutions for each individual space to meet the requirements identified, including specific luminaires for harsh environments and/or scene setting, the lighting controls for specific tasks during the teaching timetable. The lighting controls were developed to significantly utilise the fantastic architectural daylight distributed throughout the building.”
