Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios completed a sophisticated space for learning and interaction at the Central Quad at TU Dublin’s Grangegorman Campus in Dublin, Ireland.

Grangegorman Campus
Science, research and innovation-focussed, the Central Quad accommodates ten schools from the College of Sciences & Health, College of Engineering & Built Environment and College of Arts & Tourism, alongside general learning space, distributed learning commons, staff accommodation and building support.

The building is a contemporary and dynamic interpretation of the classic university quadrangle, split into two L-shaped forms blocks around a landscaped courtyard. A simple, but generous, colonnade provides shelter and a collegiate atmosphere. Large windows look inwards to the green space of the quad and outwards to the Grangegorman Campus and its neighbourhood.

A clear entrance to the quad is marked by a double height atrium. The 35,000sqm building contains general learning space – including a 250 seat lecture theatre and informal learning and commons areas, staff accommodation and building support – as well as a range of specialist learning facilities such as wet and dry laboratories, workshops, kitchens, support spaces and teaching restaurants.

Connected Campus
Located 1.5 miles from the city centre, the Grangegorman Campus is the largest higher education development in Europe. The development opens up access to a significant area of public space and education facilities to welcome in locals, students and visitors alike.

Routes through the building make it an open and accessible building and announce its role as a teaching and social centre for the university. Reflecting the ambitions of the new Campus, the Central Quad, brings together the whole of the university ecosystem to interact, engage and learn together.

Once complete, the campus will relocate TU Dublin’s 20,000 staff and students, currently housed in 39 buildings across Dublin, bringing them together in a single campus.

Technical and Collaborative
Central Quad is home to 6,500 students and 400 staff, and provides flexible and specialist accommodation for ten of the University’s existing schools. Covering the areas of physical and life sciences, computer science, food science, culinary arts, hospitality and engineering, the building has provision for each from wet labs and workshops, to training kitchens and a bakery shop.

The collaborative spaces of Central Quad are designed to bring together cross -disciplinary groups, both formally and informally to promote new synergies and interdisciplinary research projects.

Sharing ideas and techniques is at the heart of the atrium’s planned programme of student expositions. Substantial breakout areas on every level provide spaces where students, staff and researchers can gather in small groups, encouraging accidental meetings and serendipitous conversations. The sheltered outdoor spaces of the quad provide a perfect space to walk and talk.

Art and Science
A five-storey, site specific sculpture was commissioned for the main atrium.
With gentle, constant movement, it reflects the shifting light, drawing attention to the upper stories and connecting the schools within the building.

Alexandra Carr’s Solaris Nexum explores our changing connection to the sun through the technological shifts of various ages. In the artwork, Carr considers celestial architecture, advances in optics and renewable energy as paradigm shifting technologies which give hope for a sustainable future for humankind.

Through a double-sided surface of suspended mirrors, Solaris Nexum is
a helical structure projected onto catenary arches, allowing continually
changing reflections in response to the shifting light.

Design: Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Photography: Ste Murray