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Space Park Leicester

Leicester

Project Details

£10m to £49.99M

Brownfield site, New Build

Practice

Shepheard Epstein Hunter

175 Grays Inn Road , London , WC1X 8UE

Space Park Leicester - 92 Corporation Road, Leicester, LE4 5SP - https://le.ac.uk/spacepark: Space Park Leicester - where space and space-enabled technology will change the world for the better - is designed for the University of Leicester by Shepheard Epstein Hunter. The SEH masterplan and architecture transform the former John Ellis School site, opposite a listed building, the Abbey Pumping Station Museum, and were evolved through close collaboration with stakeholders since early feasibility studies in 2015. The first two phases are now complete. Space Park Leicester provides '... state-of-the-art, high-tech facilities for research, development and manufacturing' and is a new home for a community of university departments and '...companies covering an end-to-end capability, from satellite design and engineering, through to downstream data and its applications...' creating '...unmatched opportunities for collaboration...where industry and academia join forces'. Space Park Leicester will '...drive research excellence and application...support industrial growth in the sector and...develop the skills needed to deliver...expansion of the space (and wider) economy.' Phase One provides a mix of teaching, laboratory, office and collaboration space; Phase Two adds laboratories, workshops and clean rooms which will deliver the METEOR (Manufacturing, Engineering, Technology and Earth Observation Research) programme. Space Park Leicester provides a mixture of types of space from people-orientated spaces such as the atria, meeting rooms and offices to highly technical spaces with very specific and challenging requirements which are essential to the functioning and validation of the institution – such as the Satellite Engineering and Test Laboratory (an ISO 6 clean room with ISO 8 robing room), four double height flexible engineering laboratories linked by overhead crane, which can be combined as one space or used separately; dark laboratory and virtual reality cave, Wolfson laboratory, model workshop, metrology laboratory, mechanical and electronics workshops. The configuration, specification and design of these spaces was worked out through a process of effective stakeholder engagement, with the academic and estates team within the University and with external partners, at various levels.