Nottingham, United Kingdom

Highfields Automotive and Engineering Training Centre. Nottingham

Hawkins\Brown

The 6600 sq m Training Centre brings into partnership Castle College, the largest provider of further education and community learning in Nottingham, and car manufacturer Toyota. Seen as an exemplar of collaboration, the facilities provide high-level training and research facilities for automotive engineering, including hybrid engine technology and biofuels. Within the centre teaching staff and trained Toyota engineers work along side students and school children, making it the first centre in Europe to offer specialist training for 14 yrs through to adult in one location.

Located within the Highfields Science Park site, the building form continues the logic of the masterplan, engaging with the central public space by allowing the landscape to flow through and around its structure.

The imaginative form of the building is derived from the linear footprints of the other buildings on the masterplan so that the building emerges like a new species from the same family of insects. It perches on the edge of a water meadow, accessed by the Science Park’s central pedestrian spine “the lilypad boardwalk”.

The two wings occupied by Castle College and Toyota extend out across the landscape, sheltering and screening 80 car parking spaces beneath. The wings feature the centre’s principal facilities – ten 250 sq m workshops, 1100 sq m of training and office space, break out spaces and changing rooms. The wings are linked by a three-storey high hub, which contains all the communal spaces including a library and IT centre, restaurant and reception.

Clad predominantly in a glazed curtain wall, the hub is shaded by 160 capsule-shaped perforated panels held in place by a facetted cone around the building. The large volumes of the workshops are clad in finely ribbed silver composite panels and are supported by rows of smooth, circular concrete columns. The smaller training blocks are clad in a riot of mixed greens, nestling around and softening the bulk of the principal workshops.

Project credits:

Client: Blueprint Ltd.

Architect: Hawkins\ Brown

Design Team: Nick Gaskell, Dave Lomax, Esther Everett, Alex Smith

Project Architect: Jeremy Walker

Structural Engineer: BWB

Services Engineer: BDSP Partnership

Quantity Surveyor: Gleeds

Project Management: Cre-8

Landscape Designers: Grant Associates

Masterplanner: Studio Egret West

CDM Coordinator: Gleeds