£71 million of construction works under way on campus

The most ambitious current project is the £30 million Barbara Hepworth Building

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A £71 million programme of new construction work plus upgrades and refurbishments to existing buildings is transforming the campus and making huge improvements to facilities at the University of Huddersfield.

The roster of projects overseen by the University’s department of Estates and Facilities ranges from the £30 million creation of a new home for the study of art, design and architecture to the £2 million transformation of a small but distinctive listed building from the 1950s.  This will become an art café, open to the public, including exhibition space for student work, and retaining many original features from its decades as a bath house for foundry workers.

Also underway is a new £18.2 million block that includes an entire floor and facilities designed to enable college students to form links with their local university and stimulate their passion for science.

There are numerous smaller, but important projects, including a new £2 million electricity substation that will ensure that the University’s campus can meet an increased demand for power.  The contractor for this is Britcon.

The most ambitious of the current projects is the £30 million Barbara Hepworth Building, the new home of the University’s School of Art, Design and Architecture.  Its foundation stone was laid early in 2018 by University’s Chancellor, HRH The Duke of York, and contractors Morgan Sindall are on target for the July 2019 completion date.  The project has a website that includes pictures and regular updates.

The site of the Barbara Hepworth Building was once occupied by the foundry firm Thomas Broadbent and still standing is the 1955 bath house used by the workers.  This was designed by the long-established Huddersfield practice Abbey Hanson Rowe, which evolved into the major global architecture firm AHR – and this is the company that will now take on the sensitive task of transforming the bath house, which has features influenced by the legendary US architect Frank Lloyd Wright, into an art café, destined to be an important new hub and meeting place for the town.

Other works

Already completed – by contractors Bardsley Construction – is an £8.3 million refurbishment of the Joseph Priestley Building, home to the University’s School of Applied Sciences.  Work now begins on an adjacent £18.2 million science block, with labs dedicated to the study of biology, chemistry and optometry – an all-new course.  The building will be ready by July 2019 and includes the important innovation of an outreach floor.

The architects for the science block are ADP – their first project for the University of Huddersfield – and the contractors are BAM, whose past assignments include the Business School, the Creative Arts Building and the Harold Wilson Building.

There are also £400,000 of improvements at the Charles Sikes Building, home to the Huddersfield Business School.  They include the creation of a business development area, and carrying out the work – to the specification of the Estates and Facilities Department’s in-house design team – are rfm Construction Management, on their first collaboration with the University.

Other projects underway including £500,000 of improvements to the University’s Library, undertaken by Huddersfield contractor Illingworth and Gregory.  And the contractor Jackson Lifts is carrying £500,000 of upgrades to lifts in three of the University’s main buildings.

A car park at Wakefield Road, adjacent to the Schwann and Oastler buildings, is to be brought back into use, in a £100,000 scheme designed by architects Jefferson Sheard that will include a number of electric vehicle charging points.