Verena Holmes Building Opens on International Women’s Day

This week sees the formal opening and renaming of the new £65m STEM building at Canterbury Christ Church University honouring the pioneering woman Mechanical Engineer Verena Holmes on International Women’s Day. In addition to amazing science and engineering facilities, this building provides the final section of the Kent and Medway Medical School which links with the HMY designed building at University of Kent and new student accommodation at Tunbridge Wells Hospital.

For HMY the naissance of the medical school began with the creation of the Faculty of Health and Social Care at Rowan Williams Court on the Medway Campus in 2004. This facility is dedicated to delivering programmes of learning which support and enrich the health and wellbeing of students, practitioners and communities. The Chatham Maritime campus is shared with University of Kent and Greenwich University

In 2010 HMY undertook a Estate Strategy review at CCCU Canterbury Campus which identified the opportunities for more extensive and modern facilities, building upon the highly respected work started by Pateman & Coupe in the 1990’s. There followed the opportunity of acquiring the adjacent redundant prison site which opened up opportunities to consolidate the University form sites around the city and provide opportunity for expansion.

Following a masterplan by BDP of the prison site and its impact upon the existing campus (building on the HMY review), we were instrumental in undertaking a feasibility study to develop the brief and concept sketches for the new STEM building. Whilst the technical design was undertaken by Hamilton Architects and constructed by contractor Gilbert Ash HMY provided Architectural Technical Advisor support to CCCU.

Along with the design and construction of the Salomons Institute for Applied Psychology in Tunbridge Wells and the numerous projects in the hospitals which comprise the East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust and the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, HMY are proud to have such a long association with the development of health facilities, medical training and all levels of education in Kent, London and the southeast.