Arup – turning exciting ideas into reality for half a century

Arup has been the name behind landmark projects in Nottinghamshire for 50 years helping architects and designers fulfil their client’s dreams. Here, associate director, John Read, talks to Richard Tresidder.

Arup was made world famous by its founder, Ove Arup, the structural engineer behind the Sydney Opera House in Australia, a man also regarded as a philosopher.

Born in Newcastle, by the time he died in 1988, Sir Ove had become the turn-to engineer for complex but interesting design. Among other things, the firm helps turn architecture into practice by using its expertise as engineers.

Today, Arup describes itself as an independent firm of designers, planners, engineers, consultants and technical specialists, working across every aspect of the built environment. According to its website “Together we help our clients solve their most complex challenges – turning exciting ideas into tangible reality as we strive to find a better way and shape a better world.”

Arup employs more than 14,000 people working in over 140 countries in a culture underpinned by Ove Arup’s aims and values.

Fifty years ago, Arup opened their office in Birmingham, followed by the Nottingham office 18 years later which today employs 80 people. When Arup arrived in Nottingham, it shared its offices with a firm of architects in West Bridgford called Bartlett and Gray with whom they were working on the Corby and Peterborough power stations.

Arup had already worked on a number of projects in Nottingham including the refurbishment of the Theatre Royal and the construction of the Royal Concert Hall which opened in 1982.

Associate director and buildings team leader, John Read heads up Arup’s Nottingham office which has a number of prestigious projects to its name. They include the restoration of the award winning Arkwright and Newton Buildings for Nottingham Trent University, and the construction of the Link building; a scheme designed by architect Sir Michael Hopkins.

“It created a new hub and focus, reshaping the city campus,” said John.

Arup had already worked with Hopkins on the creation of the Jubilee Campus at Nottingham University 20 years ago built on a site of industrial dereliction.

The choice of Hopkins was heavily influenced by his impressive scheme for the headquarters of the Inland Revenue in Castle Meadow Road which had recently been completed.

Hopkins and Arup have frequently worked together in Nottingham and elsewhere, most recently collaborating on the revitalisation of the George Green library at the University of Nottingham.

This year, the Nottingham and Solihull offices are celebrating 50 years of Arup’s presence in the Midlands. They’re marking the occasion with a series of events supporting charities in the region.

Staff were set a target of giving 5,000 hours to charitable causes over the year which was achieved in half the time by their combined 840 staff. Projects such as HS2 have seen numbers in the Midlands region grow substantially.

“Over the years, Arup has grown to become a one stop shop for all built environment services,” said John. “It could be an airport, railway, a tunnel or a building.”

A significant current project is the Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre in Stanford Hall in south Nottinghamshire.

Arup have project managed the £300 million development which will be one of the world’s best rehabilitation centres for injured service men and women with the potential to develop a national clinical rehabilitation facility for the benefit of the nation.

A scheme everyone in Nottingham will know was the £8 million redesign of the Old Market Square by Gustafson Porter where Arup carried out the civil, structural and services engineering designs.

Arup engineered the new Waterside campus for the University of Northampton where four new academic buildings are going up. Some of Arup’s early work in the city was for the University of Nottingham – first the agricultural and science building on the Sutton Bonington campus, and later on the main campus with Sir Basil Spence, architect of the fashionable Coventry Cathedral, in the early 1960s.

Most recently, Arup completed work on the university’s Advanced Manufacturing Building in Derby Road, designed by Bond Bryan Architects. Arup has been involved in many major city projects which have become established landmarks such as Nottingham Contemporary with its familiar lace pattern stamped into the green cladding, a reminder of the Lace Market’s heritage.

“The green and gold is quite stark,” added John. “Arts and cultural buildings are quite difficult to get right and Nottingham Contemporary is bold and different.”

He continued: “We support architects and develop ideas, getting the best out of working as a team. But of course, not everything we work on is loved by everyone. It is the nature of working with architects on cutting edge, controversial and interesting schemes that you are going to be involved in some things that people are not going to like.”

He added: “But let’s build plenty of things that people have an opinion about.”

The range of skills offered by Arup in Nottingham is impressive: building and structural engineering; mechanical and electrical engineering; civil engineering and planning, acoustics and fire support.

The University of Nottingham has developed a reputation for research that advances the design of road and airport pavements using bitumen and concrete. The Nottingham office has a specialty skill in the field of pavement engineering which Arup uses internationally on airports such as Gatwick, Dublin, Istanbul and Toronto as well as work on runways for the Ministry of Defence.

The Nottingham team is also working on HS2 – helping develop the preferred route running 50 miles north from Birmingham to Crewe and the section north of Nottingham to Leeds.

Its planning team is involved in helping Notts County Council and other stakeholders shape the thinking around the hub that will be created at Toton. Another team are involved in developing and refining the detailed plans for the major new HS2 interchange near Solihull which will serve Birmingham Airport and the wider West Midlands region.

“We have a lot of expertise in the interface of surrounding uses of land and the links with the station,” said John.

They are completing the design of the Smart Motorway upgrade that is currently onsite between junctions 23a and 25 of the M1 and further afield are working on highways projects on the M25, M56, M49 and M4.

Today, the engineering and design consultancy has expanded its office space in Nottingham by 30% to 12,000 sq ft, in order to make room for a rapidly growing team reflecting the busy order book. By September, numbers will have grown to more than 90.

Said John: “We have doubled the number of employees in our Nottingham office in the last five years investing in new skills, including town planning, digital consultancy and risk management to strengthen our local offering.”

As part of its 50 year celebrations in the Midlands, the practice has been involved in a competition for primary schools in Nottingham and Birmingham.

“We asked primary schools to draw up their ideas of what they thought the future might look like in 50 years time. We had 1,500 entries from Nottingham primary schools and 6,000 in Birmingham which were shortlisted into key stage groups.”

Each winning school received £500 and the winning children received a voucher and certificate. The children visited Arup’s Nottingham office in City Gate West where they were treated to a prize giving, talks about engineering design and creativity and a virtual reality presentation of their work.

 

Article from Nottingham Post 18.8.18