The ARU Medical Centre is a state of the art new medical teaching building at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford.

The project was delivered by Willmott Dixon (WD) Construction under a Design and Build Contract as part of the Scape procurement framework.

Pure Structures were appointed by WD to work alongside Rivington Street Studio Architects and responsible for the Structural/Civils Design of the project.

The facilities were complex and varied being required to include large open plan dissection/tutorial spaces, lecture theatre, cadaver storage and a mock-up hospital ward.

With minimal inter floor symmetry, the structural solution had to accommodate changing room proportions at each level with few opportunities for full height/continuous vertical structures.

In responding to the spatial complexity, we developed an RC structural scheme around continuous reframe beams in one plane enabling translation of columns at each level parallel to the beam lines.

This provided the basis of the scheme and enabled us to agree column locations to accommodate the change in layout at each level.

The concept was further advanced in the location of the proposed lecture space where the action of reframe beams over three levels were combined as a ‘system frame’ able to meet strength/deflection criteria to span the 11m clear over the lecture hall space.

As well as the complexity of the building arrangement, the site presented challenges in that the building was positioned in an area of extensive fill (>3.0m thick) requiring a piled foundations system and suspended GF construction.

Our works included design of underground foul and surface drainage including SuDS attenuation storage located beneath the external entrance terrace.

The building was completed/commissioned in 2020 and has become a leading medical teaching centre in the UK.