Space Park Leicester Center / Shepheard Epstein Hunter

The building is arranged as four and five-story pavilions that provide teaching, laboratory, office, and collaboration space around a central atrium, encouraging interaction between disciplines and outreach with the local community and schools; and a two-story technical wing (capable of upward extension) which provides specialist laboratories, workshops, and clean rooms, delivering the METEOR (Manufacturing, Engineering, Technology, and Earth Observation Research) program. The buildings hug the curving eastern boundary like a serpent on the plan, sitting close to parkland and mature tree canopies, and furthest from the adjacent low-rise housing to the west which is of a different scale.

The project is an example of design excellence and imaginative and regenerative use of publicly owned brownfield land which promotes economic growth in association with neighboring development. It creates Space Park Leicester as an independent research institute, synergetic with the nearby National Space Centre, and aligned with the UK’s National Space Strategy’s four objectives: unlocking growth in the UK space sector; collaborating internationally with partners and allies; growing the UK as a science and technology superpower and developing resilient space capabilities and services.

Space Park Leicester has transformed a long-disused contaminated brownfield site in a flood-risk zone at the end of a cul-de-sac into a generator of social, economic, and environmental improvement. The site, formerly used for a landfill, was capped and raised to 400mm above the 1:1000-year flood level and 700mm above the 1:100-year (+50% climate change allowance) flood level. The site was overgrown after disuse twenty years ago and adopted by badgers and so the rectangular perimeter on which initial designs were based was reduced by 25% during early design stages to allow their retention.

Professor Martin Barstow from the University of Leicester has said: ‘We have an amazing building. It has really delivered everything we wanted in terms of the quality of the environment and the variety of meeting/interaction spaces and laboratory facilities. The beautiful atrium creates a focal point for the occupants of the building and a welcoming landing space for visitors. The facility allows us to host industry partners side-by-side with academic researchers and creates a new model for collaboration. We believe we have created something unique in the world and a number of international visitors have confirmed this in their enthusiastic and positive comments.’