Occupying a focal position on Sheffield University’s campus this exciting project involves the redevelopment of the well known Jessop Hospital laundry building. SKM anthony hunts was engaged to structurally engineer the demolition of the original two storey steel frame and brick clad building to create a state of the art building housing laboratories and offices for quasi-commercial use.
The new steel framed building is five storeys high with each floor having offices and laboratories on either side of a central corridor. This arrangement created an ideal research facility and minimised the distance between the laboratories and offices. Each floor comprises of a 165mm thick composite floor slab designed to withstand 5.0kN/m2.
Services for the building are situated on the top floor, which is covered to protect the sensitive mechanical and electrical plant from the elements.
The building is innovative in its use of multiple forms of cladding by using glass block panels, brick panels, glass curtain walling, Luxalon Quadroclad rainscreen cladding and Patinated copper cladding.
Whilst the structure of the building is relatively straightforward the most striking aspects of the design will undoubtedly be the precast concrete scissor stairs visible through the glass curtain walling and the full height tapered CHS column supporting the large roof overhang.
Our close cooperation with the architect and services engineer has led to this successful completion of this state of the art university building.