4 West

April 2010

A copy of the 4 West Building User Guide can be found here.

The new building completes, on time and within budget, and its occupiers will move in over the Easter weekend

This weekend sees the long awaited completion of the new 4 West building; the project has been finished on time and within budget which is an excellent outcome.

Cowlin of Bristol has been the main contractor for the construction of 4 West. The new building replaces the former 4 West which was demolished in 2005. The new building is accredited with a BREEAM ‘Excellent' rating for its design and will help in the University's target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from campus. The 4 West Refurbishment also achieved a BREEAM 'Excellent' rating.

Practical completion with the contractor will take place on Thursday 1 April 2010, and work will continue over the Easter weekend to move the building's occupiers into their new surroundings.

The occupiers of the building are:

Level 0 - Plant rooms, shower facilities for cyclists
Level 1 - 3 x GTA rooms
Level 2 - 4 West Café, Student Services, Postgraduate Centre
Level 3 - Vice-Chancellor's Suite, Office of the University Secretary
Levels 1 - 5 also include the Department of Mathematical Sciences; their Reception is on Level 2.

In September 2009, both the Café and Student Services areas opened. The Café has proved to be a very popular venue and has done a great deal to create a more pleasing environment on the Parade.

Amongst the building's many facilities are 2 accessible lifts, high efficiency lighting, sustainable goat hair carpets, brise soleil on key windows, and a concrete cooling system for ventilation. 4 West is the first building in the UK to use this system, manufactured by a German company, Kiefer.

4 West is the first new academic building to be constructed on the campus since 3 West North in 2004/5. Projects currently under construction are the East Building, which can now been seen on the skyline on the eastern side of the campus and is due for completion in early 2011, and the major extension to the Student Centre at the foot of Norwood House.

March 2010 - The Move

A draft programme for fit out of furnishings and fixtures and for users to take occupation of 4 West can be found here.

February 2010

The 4 West project is on programme and is heading for completion on 1 April 2010. Staff from 1 West will begin to move in over the Easter Vacation 2010. The images below show external views of the near completed building.

The atruim, pictured below, is a glass roofed structure that links the 4 West building with the Parade. The image shows the link bridges spanning the strium at levels 2 and 3.

December 2009

The atrium in progress:

August 2009

The pictures below and right are architectural images of what the 4 West building will look like. A slideshow of larger images is also available here

Level 1 and Level 2

Atrium - Internal view and Section through the Entrance and Atrium

July 2009

Now, halfway through the construction project, the site is very busy. The Principal Contractor, Cowlin, is co-ordinating all the different activities to maintain site safety and keep to the contract programme.

The concrete frames of the new build now reach Level 4, with internal stair cores and service ducts being cast and finished for levels below as the building rises.

The external brick cladding that will conceal the concrete frame can now be seen. Power and data containment services are being placed in all rooms along with the Keifer concrete cooling system.

The bridges that join the new build to the Parade are about to be formed and engineering plant is now being fitted to the new plant room on Level 1.

With the rooms on Parade level, the internal walls for the new Student Services Centre are complete and the initial fit out is well underway, along with the nearby 4 West Café. Handover of the first phase of the Café area was achieved by the target date of the 30th June 2009, giving the kitchen the benefit of a new walk in freezer and cool room in the space formerly occupied by Security.

Space planning of offices, aimed at achieving best possible use of the space within the new build, has reached an advanced stage. Meetings with user groups are held regularly so that at handover furniture will be in place to agreed layouts.

April 2009

Work on the new building and to the nucleus is progressing well and to programme.

The concreting of all the solid ground floors and the service ducts is now complete. The upper floors are being cast in-situ and the reinforced concrete frames and some of the first floors can be seen as the building progresses upwards.

On 6 April 2009 works starts on Parade Level to create the Café, utilising rooms once occupied by the Careers Service and Security. Along with the new Student Services area, the Café facility is due for completion in September 2009.

December 2009

The Department of Estates are pleased to announce that the design of the new 4 West building and the nucleus of the existing project have both been awarded BREEAM ‘Excellent' ratings. This exceeds the target of ‘Very Good' that had been predicted; the certificate was issued in February 2009.

The target for the final ‘as built' scheme is ‘Excellent' for the new build and ‘Very Good' for the nucleus. There are two different standard being aimed at because the choice of some of the equipment used internally may have the potential to reduce the BREEAM assessment rating but the project would aim for at least BREEAM ‘Very Good' on the fit-out.

The project received full marks in assessment of its management of the following aspects:

• responsible commissioning practices
• measures to minimise environmental site impacts
• steps to counter pollution
• promote health and well-being
• initiatives concerning energy and transport
• its design to consume less energy through the use of energy efficient heating systems, including solar panels,
• use of low energy lighting
• includes the ‘Keifer' concrete cool system, the first building in the UK to specify this
• a natural ventilation strategy
• installed with eco-friendly equipment, such as fridges and freezers
• has good links to public transport and community facilities
• uses sustainable building products and materials
• employs sustainable drainage techniques
• includes measures to improve the ecology of the site and reduce external lighting spillage.

The University is delighted to receive this award in recognition of our commitment towards sustainable development. It proves that we are at the forefront of environmental design in the higher education. The comprehensive nature of the BREEAM assessment also demonstrates that we are minimising the environmental impact of this building through a whole range of areas and initiatives. We will be working closely with BRE Global, the award scheme's independent approvals body, as they continue to develop the scheme.

University of Bath's Claverton campus also recently received ‘Excellent' awards for environmental design on the new student residences, Woodland Court , marking that project out as one of only three in the country to achieve the status.

The award is made by the Building Research Establishment's BREEAM Environmental Award Scheme (under its BRE Global BREEAM Multi-Residential 2005 Scheme), which rewards designs that take positive steps to minimise environmental impact.

BREEAM

BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) is the world's longest established and most widely used environmental assessment method for buildings. It sets the standard for best practice in sustainable design and has become the de facto measure of a building's environmental performance. Credits are awarded in eight categories according to performance. These credits are then added together to produce a single overall score on a scale of pass, good, very good and excellent.

BREEAM Buildings can be used to assess the environmental performance of any type of building (new and existing). Standard versions exist for common building types and less common building types can be assessed against tailored criteria under the Bespoke BREEAM version. Buildings outside the UK can also be assessed using BREEAM International.

January 2009

There has been a great deal of groundworks activity on the site during the last month, despite the low temperatures. This has gone so well so that the majority of the buildings foundations and floor slabs are now in place. With the building frame soon to rise above first floor level, Cowlin will take delivery of a 35m tower crane over the weekend of the 31 January 2009.

This will enable Cowlin to move plant and materials safely, quickly and effectively around the site to each of the floors of the new building.

Good progress has also been made on the nucleus buildings facing the Parade. The removal of the scaffolding before Christmas revealed the new windows. Work to replace the roof coverings of this block and to the bridge across the Parade is almost completed and the new windows are now in place behind the timber hoardings at Parade level.

December 2008

The 4 West site has been very active over the past few weeks and the project is making good progress

Most of the scaffolding on the Parade will have been taken down by Christmas. The frontage on Levels 2 and 3 was steam cleaned prior to the scaffolding being taken down. The first sections of the new lighting designed for the Parade is in place outside the Library and further installations will commence early in the New Year.

November 2008

The University is delighted to announce that Cowlin of Bristol has been appointed as main contractors for the construction of 4 West. Cowlin will be assisted by Stride Treglown/Tektus of Bath, their architects. The proposed start date on site will be Monday 17 November 2008 but Cowlin will be progressively moving onto site with immediate effect.

Early works between now and Christmas will see the start of the installation of the windows on the Parade (Level 2), which will allow the removal of most of the scaffolding and hoarding on the Parade.

Cowlin has had a long relationship with the University of Bath, working on projects such as 8 East and more recently the 4 South Annex.