Arup Associates campus model

Declan O'Carroll

My name is Declan O'Carroll, I'm a director with Arup Associates and my involvement with this project was the architectural leader.

Here the ambition was clear - it was to re-invent this building type away from the traditional flat roofed tin shed into one that celebrated people at its heart and how people inhabit these buildings, and establish a direct relationship with the external environment, both the countryside and the wider environment in terms of allowing the building to rely on a naturally ventilated strategy.

It's a building that evokes certain relationships with historic agricultural buildings in the area, evokes a vernacular in relation to the English countryside, but is incredibly contemporary and reminds itself that buildings are for people and not the reverse, and in that sense has set, we believe, a clear signal to how buildings should move forward, where we are removing complexity and putting simplicity back in, and reminding us that people are important and the environment is important and addressing those two in harmony gives one half a chance of a successful building.

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Alan Belfield

My name is Alan Belfield, I'm a group director here at Arup and I lead all the consulting activities in Europe and I work and operate out of the Campus. I was partially responsible for the idea behind the Campus, as I was one of the leaders taking a group that would go and work there. And actually, it means a lot to us that the people at Campus love the building. It manifests itself in a more efficient, more productive work force which I think is fantastic. The spine of the building contains some common facilities like a gymnasium, cafeteria, break-out spaces and a very large lecture theatre, and I think that spine helps bind people together, so no matter which wing you're in, you actually feel closer to the centre.

Campus actually stands out - it's not a glass air-conditioned box, it has a faç ade of natural wood. On the top of the buildings are these large chimneys, oast house type chimneys. Actually if you look at most of the other buildings, you wouldn't know where you were really, you could be in any business park anywhere in the country. Our building is very different and we are very proud of it. I have to say it takes some getting used to, and very unkindly some of the local taxi drivers do call it "The Chicken Shed". But actually the building is just astoundingly good.

I think it's an incredibly modern building and will look great for the next 50 to 60 years. As we take some of the issues of sustainability on board and start thinking about the building for the user I think we'll have more and more buildings that look like this. There's two key parts to the building - it has to be absolutely first class for the staff and it has to represent the ideals of the company and I think it does both of those brilliantly.

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