Edinburgh Innovation Hub, Musselburgh

A unique opportunity to transform the perception of the River Clyde which runs through the city centre from a barrier into an open space that connects the communities to the south with those to the north, mending links between east and west: a place to meet our waterfront, a place to socialise and to enjoy a restorative sense of openness and connection to nature, in the heart of a city with an international status. 

To enable the site development, we were asked by East Lothian Council to design all the drainage and levels across the masterplan area, beyond the EIH red line boundary. This was to primarily help with the New Craig Ross site being developed out by others which was stuck at pre-planning stage developing drainage options. 

We developed a comprehensive drainage strategy for the EIH site, demonstrating a commitment to both efficiency and environmental responsibility. This strategy incorporated a carefully considered hybrid approach, combining traditional piped drainage systems with sustainable road edge swales. Detailed hydraulic modelling and calculations were undertaken to ensure the drainage system met all required discharge rates and water quality standards. We prioritised a design that was both functional and sensitive to the site's topography, considering existing earthworks and site levels to minimise disruption and optimise construction costs.

As a design team a key objective was to provide a future proofed and versatile design for the building. It is key for the building layout to be adaptable to changing market needs and to accommodate anticipated tenant churn. From an engineering perspective our designs developed all columns on corridor and envelope lines to maximise flexibility, steel sizes on the upper floors are lean to allow for additional services in ceiling. Ground floor labs have a flat concrete slab with servicing below. If the need to operate as a laboratory was removed, along with the servicing, this space would gain ceiling height and have an exposed concrete soffit.

The structural design needed to accommodate laboratory and office spaces with minimal internal structure. The laboratory space required Vibration Criteria A (VC-A), influencing material choices and resulting in a value engineering exercise due to budget constraints. Initially, the client wanted laboratories on upper floors and offices on the ground floor, but this would have excluded a steel frame option and increased embodied carbon. By moving the laboratories to the ground floor, a hybrid frame of concrete and steel was used, providing both carbon and cost savings.

Designing a laboratory building to meet both VC-A and CL2 comes with a set of intertwined architectural, structural, mechanical, and safety considerations. We worked as a design team to ensure that placement of mechanical systems ensured they were isolated both for biosafety and vibration control, the lab layout workflows support CL2 biosafety practices and the building was able to control noise levels with material specification e.g. using concrete to block airborne noise and ensuring lifts were in the central atrium.