Balfour Beatty has completed the £81m Diamond Building for the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sheffield. Wrapped in 2,780 distinctive anodised aluminium diamonds, which give the building its name, the block will become home for the university’s engineering undergraduates.
Designed by Twelve Architects, a practice spun out of RMJM at the height of its financial troubles, the 19,500 sq m facility is the university’s largest capital investment in teaching and learning.
Built to provide facilities for the department’s growing number of students the building controversially replaces the grade II-listed Edwardian wing of the Jessop Hospital, which was demolished to make way for the project.
The atrium is criss-crossed with bridges and features a spiral staircase
The ground floor of the five-storey building contains a public route that contains a café and library. Seven lecture theatres, the largest of which can seat 400 people, have been placed in the basement.
Above these public spaces there are 21 specialist engineering laboratories, including a chemical engineering pilot plant room, clean room, aerospace simulation lab and a virtual reality suite. These lab spaces, as well as computer rooms and study spaces, are arranged to the north and south of a central atrium.
Glazed at both ends and lit from above the naturally ventilated central space provides light into the teaching spaces. The atrium is criss-crossed with bridges, contains a spiral staircase and several enclosed learning pods on orange stilts.
According to the architect, the diamond-shaped cladding references a “cellular automaton”, a discrete model studied in engineering and used by the university to describe how the microstructure of steel changes during processing.
Above the ground floor are computer rooms and study spaces
