A new beginning
How City Campus in Gloucestershire is showing that old buildings can breathe new opportunity into city centres…
But since the sad demise of this once-great British high street cornerstone, it left behind over 100 buildings to stand vacant – a sad remnant of what the pandemic inflicted on the retail industry.
However, with loss comes opportunity, and in 2021, the University of Gloucestershire took advantage of the opportunity by purchasing the building, and with it a vision that will help the University connect their campus right into the heart of Gloucester City Centre.
Customer | University of GloucestershireFramework | Pagabo Architect | ADPPM | Ridge Engineer | ARUP
City Campus Project
Communications lead, Laura Roach, dropped in to catch up with Senior Project Manager James Lawley, about the Intelligent Solutions his team has deployed in pursuit of success on the scheme.
Like many old buildings, it serves as an interesting reflection on a city’s change over more than a century.
The city’s first department store, Bon Marche, owned by Drapery Trust, was opened on Northgate Street in 1889 by John Rowe Pope and still etched on the side of the building are the dates 1909 and 1914, which indicate the expansion of the building and also the growth of retail shopping in Gloucester.
In 1971, the Bon Marche department store was sold to Debenham’s.
Its rise signalled the coming of a commercial boom in the city, much like its later decline came to reflect the downturn of city centre retail in the early 21st century.
Yes, it's a great idea!
No, they should be demolished
They should be turned back into shops
Click to watch the video
The development of this 20,000m2 building will place University of Gloucestershire right at the heart of its community, creating a vibrant hub of new activity in the city centre in King’s Square.
The City Campus (as it is aptly named) will house teaching and learning spaces, lecture theatres, VR rooms, study areas, student and city libraries, a café and student union areas.
Current leader on the building is James Lawley, Senior Project Manager at Morgan Sindall Construction.
He’s driving this exciting, yet challenging, scheme that will bring the historical building back to life.
It’s been a fantastic experience. Bringing old buildings back to life is an important responsibility and it is one we take seriously. With a building like this, you learn about it as you go along, and coupled with the historic aspects, this has been a once in a lifetime project.
Gloucester began life as a Roman town – lying at the first point where the River Severn can easily be crossed, it was a natural place to build a town and, over the centuries it continued to be an important landmark for the latest conquerors of the kingdom.
As a result, the necessary excavations in the basement and service yard have unearthed some interesting findings. So much so that archaeologists had to take over a watching brief to excavate around an 18th century church and medieval burial grounds, thought to be on grounds consecrated by Edward the Confessor himself (pictured insert is the old Roman fort that has previously been found in the City).
Gloucester Roman Fort Visualisation
Unearthing burial grounds has meant specialist consultation with the archaeologists and Diocese to ensure any remains are relocated with the correct procedures.
A lot of churches were located on this land dating back to Saxon times – when we were excavating for the substation we had to go to a greater depth, which is where we encountered the medieval burial ground and we found 160 bodies just within the footprint of the substation.
Practically speaking, the team has redesigned as much ‘ground-based work’ as possible to reduce the risk of further archaeology finds – something that’s absolutely necessary to protect the programme.
An example of this is the relocation of toilet facilities originally planned for the basement, onto upper floors.
Whilst the building isn’t listed, it is an important landmark for the local community, and as such, the sympathetic façade design of the curtain walling and windows has been essential in carefully bringing the buildings character into the 21st century.
In fact, the original windows on the Oxebode were installed by a company called Crittal Windows in the 1930’s.
To ensure a like for like replacement, the team brought in the same business to remake and install, ensuring that the building retains its early 20th century character.
Taking on an old building will always pose challenges – and the team has had to overcome its fair share on this scheme.
Early survey works were essential in determining the state of the structure and a constant dialogue with the structural engineers on the scheme has been critical in overcoming numerous challenges.
Breaking out concrete from around existing steels was necessary to understand the state of the structure.
Over its lifetime, the building has been extended three times, and that brings with it different forms (and quality!) of construction methods.
This resulted in the scheme needing over 30 new, and specifically designed, steel connections when typically, a building may only need three or four.
Bespoke steel connections
The floors are also filled with clay pots – a Victorian ‘void former’ which enabled construction workers of yesteryear to use less concrete in the formation of floor slabs – the team has had to undertake extensive surveying to locate each of the voids and fill with a grout that enables new services and glazing to be fixed into the floors.
“Clay pots have no real structural properties, so we had to identify the voids, fill them full of non-shrink grout, says James, “this would then allow us to fix the curtain walling brackets to the underside of the pots.”
Down in the basement significant flooding and damp was discovered. Much of the previous damp proof in the slab had failed.
To overcome the ingress, the team has created permanent internal ditches to carry any water away from the building and break out the existing slab so they can upgrade the new damp proof membrane.
Internal ditch
Sustainability and social value are important both to the University and the entire stakeholder team - that's why the team has implemented a carbon and social value charter to outline some key commitments on the scheme.
Over the lifetime of the building, it is estimated that the City Campus project will add over £700 million of direct and indirect value to the economy.
Click to watch a short interview with our year out site manager George
By the very nature of choosing retrofit over rebuild, there is already a huge carbon saving.
On site the team has been using their carbon tool, CarboniCa, to help model the savings that can be made by choosing different materials. So far they have already saved 147 tCO2e through sustainable construction operations such as plant, equipment and welfare power choices and have also brought in air source heat pumps as part of the renewable strategy.
On site the team has created 21 workless job starts, 285 apprentice weeks and 4 work experience placements. 82 volunteer hours and £10,505 have been donated to charitable projects, giving a total social value return of almost £19 million as at March 2024.
Click to watch the interviews
Taking on a huge retrofit challenge is not for the faint hearted. Of course, in simple terms, knocking a building down and starting again, may seem to be the easy choice.
But then you’ve got to ask yourself, what cost, and carbon, is associated with that choice? Not to mention the loss of the intangible connection we all feel with historic buildings.
It’s upon all of us to do the right thing, so what we love about this scheme is the bravery of the University for taking on this building, to provide a campus in the City that will do everything they wanted and more.
If I was going to be learning in a new building, I think I’d be more inspired by one that has a multitude of stories behind it rather than one that has no tapestry attached – and this building can absolutely tell a lot of stories.
