Carnegie Teaching and Research

CAD21 delivered the detailed building services design with Galliford Try through a two-stage tender. This project for Leeds Beckett required one building to do several very different jobs at the same time.

The Carnegie Teaching and Research (CTaR) Building, 8,600m² on the Headingley Campus, brings elite athletes, sports researchers and industry partners together under one roof. Research laboratories, a hypoxic lab, an indoor sprint track, enhanced strength and conditioning space, a rooftop walking track and terrace, and recovery facilities that all sit in the same building, and each one needs something different from its environment.

A research lab needs steady, controlled conditions, while a sprint track throws off heat the moment athletes start working. Getting both right, so that no space undermines the one next to it, came down to controlling each space on its own terms.

The air handling runs on demand-led control, holding laboratory conditions steady while the training spaces flex with how busy and how warm they get. VRF heating and cooling handles each zone individually, so nothing’s averaged across the building.

We also worked with the university’s Estates team to bring the primary utility feeds in and tie it into the campus-wide network, with little disruption to what was already running.

Energy efficiency shaped the services design from the start, which included efficient plant, LED lighting throughout and roof-mounted solar which brought the building to an as-built EPC rating of B27.