Client University of Leeds
Sector Higher Education
Location Yorkshire
Value £28m
A landmark building at the gateway to the University, the refurbishment of the Chemical and Process Engineering Building at Leeds was an exemplar of coordination and collaboration with the client.
The project involved the two‐year refurbishment of 22 laboratories, three teaching spaces, a lecture theatre and a 24/7 IT Cluster in the occupied 14,500 sqm School of Chemical and Process Engineering.
The project expanded from an initial 12 phases to 22 leading to £5.5m in additional works. Despite this, the project duration was only extended by 20 calendar days and still completed within the agreed timescales, allowing the facility to be fully operational for student use at the beginning of term.
The campus and the existing building remained fully operational throughout the refurbishment with over 450 visitors into the building daily. The priority on this project was to make sure that the building continued to function as normal throughout the two‐year construction programme.
Some major works were carried out overnight or out‐of‐hours and condensed larger lifting exercises, such as the installation of new air handling units, into single weekends, using a 100‐tonne mobile crane.
As part of the University’s ongoing investment in nuclear fission research, we created a suite of three purpose built laboratories for research using radioactive materials with space for pilot scale rigs, bench top chemical experiments and high specification analytic equipment, as well as a new photonics laboratory for advanced functional materials engineering.
