The Robert Gordon University, Garthdee campus

In order to continue to raise their academic profile at home and abroad, Robert Gordon University has an ambitious campus development project planned for the Garthdee site, a riverside location with outstanding natural characteristics. The University’s aspiration is to create an exemplary teaching and learning environment that will maintain and enhance its position as the top modern University in the UK.

KJ Tait Engineers has distinct appointments as engineering designer, sustainability and BREEAM consultant and to provide IT support for this major expansion.

The architectural expression of the new buildings will create a powerful sense of arrival, providing students, staff and visitors with a clear and unequivocal feeling of what the Robert Gordon University represents.

Central to the sense of arrival is the formation of a “heart” to the campus, with the creation of a library tower, rising above the main entrance. To the east of the site, the creation of new teaching and learning facilities for the Schools of Engineering, Computing, Life Sciences and Pharmacy, Gray’s School of Art and Scott Sutherland School of Architecture together with a student services hub and social and catering space will be created. To the west, the existing Faculty of Health and Social Care is linked to the main entrance with existing space reinvented to consolidate this connection.

The development will provide a total new build of some 34,000m2 at the Garthdee campus, with a further 10,000m2 of re-configured space within the existing estate. The total outturn cost of the proposed development is estimated at £100m. The project is due for completion in 2013.