Potterrow Edinburgh building images, Crichton Street Campus Project Architects, Scotland, Design

Edinburgh Informatics – IT Building

Edinburgh University Department on Crichton St

post updated 28 October 2023

Design: Bennetts Associates (London) with Reiach and Hall Architects (Edinburgh)

Edinburgh School of Informatics

RIBA Awards 2009 – Scotland

building photos © Keith Hunter

Civic Trust Awards 2010 Shortlisted

Potterrow – Aug 2007 Update : Latest Potterrow images

photo © Adrian Welch

Potterrow – Sep 2005 Building Update
SEEL £14m funding announced to kickstart Bennetts Associates’ £42m Edinburgh Informatics for Edinburgh University

EU Campus : Potterrow

Project by Bennetts Associates, with Reiach and Hall Architects for Edinburgh

University. Images of the new School of Informatics building were withheld whilst the application was being viewed by the planning authority – planning application submitted in early August 2004.

The new £40m information technology building is to be located on the current Crichton Street car park by Potterrow. The development, planned for completion in 2007, will provide a new Informatics Forum for the School.
070904

Bennetts Associates with Reiach and Hall Architects: information, 2005

Forty years after the curtailment of the Basil Spence scheme for Edinburgh University’s city centre campus, a substantial new building is planned for the largest site that was cleared for development in the 1960s. As the major component of the University’s new masterplan for the George Square/Bristo Square area, it replaces a windswept car park with a rich mix of buildings, courtyards and reinstated streetlines.

The development totals approximately 25,000 square metres with three principal users – the School of Informatics, the College of Humanities and Social Science and University Student Support Services. In broad terms, Informatics occupies one building with the remaining users in another, but the scheme also includes street level shops, a cafe and a gallery.

Each of these two primary volumes is planned round an atrium, facing each other across a shared courtyard, but their form allows them to overlap on the street edges and undulate in height from three floors to eight. From the inside, the buildings are rational and simple; from the outside they appear far more complex and responsive to their surroundings.

A public pedestrian route passes through the courtyard on its way from Bristo Square to Potterrow, echoing the historic alignment of Bristo Street.

The academic space is relatively uniform and readily adaptable to potential future uses. Much of the accommodation is cellular, so the floorplates have been laid out to ensure that circulation routes engage with a variety of viewing points, open-plan break-out spaces and double-height volumes. Construction reflects the simplicity of the plan, with a low energy strategy based on exposed concrete slabs and air supplied from the floorsupplemented by opening windows.

Externally, the elevations play on the distinction between the stone-faced streets of Edinburgh and the need for more light-reflective surfaces to the courtyard. Different types of stone cladding and contrasting ratios of solid to void are used to highlight the hierarchy implied by the different facades, Charles Street being the major thoroughfare with the greatest need for animation and Potterrow being more regular. A similar pattern of storey-height panels is used in the courtyard spaces, but with quartz-aggregate white concrete providing a tone and atmosphere more suited to external spaces in a northern climate.

Potterrow Informatics Edinburgh – property information 2004:
An internationally-renowned Edinburgh University department is set to rise from the ashes of the Old Town blaze with a new research centre in Edinburgh. The University of Edinburgh plan to build a multi-million pound complex in Crichton Street car park just off Potterrow.

It is understood the building has been earmarked as a possible new home for the celebrated School of Informatics – gutted in the Old Town Fire. Edinburgh University suggest the 30,000 sqm building may cost around £50m. The complex is expected to include a health centre, seminar space, laboratories, offices and workshops.

Edinburgh Informatics Images from Bennetts Associates Jun 2005 + Apr 2006

Edinburgh School of Informatics – Shortlist Jun 2003:

– Bennetts Associates

– Foster & Partners

– RMJM

Potterrow Edinburgh School of Informatics on site photos, Summer 2006: