UCD Village – Student Education and Amenity Building | ICI Award Winner – Health & Education Project of the Year

Our UCD Village – Student Education & Amenity building was recently awarded Project of the year in the Health & Education category at the ICI Awards 2022.  The project was completed in October 2021 and represents the first stage of a masterplan for UCD Students living on campus.  The building forms the epicentre of student life and provides all the amenity spaces and facilities catering for all the students needs from a bike shop to student welfare. The central space of the building is conceived as serving all of the communal requirements of the student in the weekday and weekend, housing events, essentials, welfare and health orientated activities in an environment which will, by design, promote interaction.

This building is a two-storey student centre, which houses a 290 seater Auditorium/Lecture/ Performance Space, as well as seating for 300 in a market-style food hall and gallery area.  It also houses restaurant and retail units, a bank, gym, dance/performance studio’s, student wellness and contact centre and office accommodation. It is ajoined to a five-storey residential block which contains 60 studio bedrooms.

“UCD wanted to create a new hub for student life centered around the campus residences – the design concept is incredibly strong and delivers accommodation and amenity that is accessible and visible to our large student population. The UCD Student Village is one of a kind and will be a fulcrum for student life.”  Tadgh Corcoran, UCD Estates Services Director

Modern methods of Construction (MMC) and Construction Technology had a big part to play in this project.  MMC ensured that waste, pollution and disruption was minimised on site, using this method led to the building achieving  BREEAM and WELL building standards, as well as being an NZEB compliant building.  The building’s energy performance has been confirmed to be in accordance with an A BER energy rating. BIM 360 was used to share a coordinated model allowing for early clash detection and coordinating, resulting in fewer site visits that would have normally been needed to solve these issues at the construction stage.

One of the sustainable aspects of the design was to use a rainwater harvesting system on the new buildings. When reviewing the building envelope, we realised that the coordination of the rainwater systems as a whole and the interface with the relevant parts of the roofing system would prove key to commissioning the building. The roofing system was mainly comprised of a stone ballast system on top of a warm roof asphalt system. From previous experience, it was understood that the ballast stone being used on the asphalt roofs quality was key and must consist of limited fines so that it could properly service the rainwater harvesting system. This was a further example of a valuable lesson learnt by members of the team which resulted in an efficient installation and commissioning of the system.

Due to the demanding nature of the build and programme, this project necessitated a very close and collaborative working relationship between our team, the client and the design team.  Due to the brilliant work done by all involved this project was successfully handed over in time for the academic year, overcoming all challenges including COVID-19.  To streamline the completion and handover process on the UCD project we implemented a continuous snagging process with ‘Zero Snags’ at substantial completion. Any snags or defects raised by the finishing foremen were corrected by the tradesmen eliminating any resultant damages in the future. BIM 360 field was also used to facilitate this goal.  The UCD Village, student education and amenity building project is consistent with our philosophy of continuously ‘Setting Standards’ in the industry through the speed and quality of our construction and integrity of our management approach.