University of Edinburgh Business School

LDN’s project for the Business School at the University of Edinburgh illustrates our particular strength in revitalising significant buildings that have lost their usefulness. The Adam Ferguson Building, designed by Robert Mathew in 1964, had become jaded, confusing to use and was suffering severe overheating problems. Its B listed status made it important for LDN to find ways to temper the internal environment and make the building legible to its users without undermining its significance or its coherence as part of a larger A listed group of1960s university buildings around George Square.

The project, which is now complete, creates facilities in a new storey of accommodation on top of the existing building and a central atrium which naturally ventilates open plan offices arranged around a new circulation core. A new pavilion on Buccleuch Place forms the school’s front door, presents a contemporary face for the Business School and allows the creation of generous, welcoming, two storey high lecture and concourse space, typical of modern education buildings, but previously lacking in the Adam Ferguson Building. Teaching in the new School started in the Autumn semester 2010.