Borders Innovation Park

Woolgar Hunter is providing a full engineering service on this project, and our earliest involvement saw our geo-environmental team undertake initial desktop studies to help with the site masterplanning and initial costing exercise. The team quickly established that part of the site was an old quarry, and that the site had been used as a contractor's compound during the construction of the re-opened railway line, allowing the design to respond to these historical uses.

The building structure is a bespoke steel frame with concrete floors and feature steel trusses. The structure is fully exposed which required detailed co-ordination with the whole design team, to ensure the aesthetics are successful. The envelope is completely offset from the main steel frame with the use of cold formed SFS and purlins, which again exposed the steel frame. Therefore, a detailed review of each individual connection and penetration throughout the structure was required.

The civil engineering design included car parking, and hard and soft landscaping which is also fully coordinated with the architect and landscape architect and incorporates best practice surface water management principles (SUDS).