An engineering consultancy firm based in Nottingham has been
appointed to work on a circa £7 million project to construct
a permanent home for the Institute of Mental Health (IMH).
Waldeck, which has seven offices throughout the east of England
and South Yorkshire, including one on Clarendon Street in
Nottingham, is working on the project alongside international
architecture firm Benoy.
The four-storey building on the University of Nottingham's
Jubilee Campus will incorporate a mixture of office and teaching
space, bringing all IMH staff groups together.
It is hoped the building, which is being funded by the
University of Nottingham, will be complete by April 2012.
Waldeck is responsible for the design and detailing of the
structural and civil engineering element of the scheme which
includes the steel framework, foundations, drainage and rainwater
attenuation systems.
Associate Director Dan Wright explained: "This will certainly be
a visually striking building. The team at Benoy have incorporated
glazed terracotta panels into the design to provide continuity with
the surrounding architecture.
"The state-of-the-art facility will incorporate the
TermoDeck® flooring system which uses the thermal storage
capacity of the building's structural mass to regulate the internal
temperatures and will be BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment
Method) Excellent rated.
"This project has given us one or two challenges," added Dan,
"owing to the high levels of glazing and the use of SIPS panels to
the building elevations and in designing the razor-edged roof
profile.
"It is also one of potentially four buildings currently that
could be constructed on the campus in close proximity to one
another which will require a lot of careful construction
planning."
Richard Wigginton, Capital Projects Officer, from the University
of Nottingham added: "We are pleased to be working with Waldeck and
Benoy on this very exciting project.
"The commitment to the construction of the bespoke new
accommodation signals the strength of partnership between the
University of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
as the co-founders of the Institute of Mental Health."
The new building will also house the CLAHRC-NDL (Collaboration
for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care -
Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire), the Mental Health
Research Network East Midlands Hub plus South Yorkshire, and the
East Midlands Leadership Academy.
Work on site is expected to commence in May 2011.