STEM Building, Canterbury Christ Church University
The Verena Holmes building is Canterbury Christ Church University’s new £65 million pound facility for Science, Technology, Health, Engineering and Medicine, opened in 2021. It is home to the Kent and Medway Engineering, Design, Growth and Enterprise (EDGE) Hub, alongside new specialist health, science and medicine facilities. It provides innovative learning and teaching, our industry focused courses support highly skilled work-ready graduates into a range of careers and sectors.
The building is part of the Universities’ £150m city campus investment comprising 18,000m2 together with a lower ground car park, erection of a single storey Energy Centre and landscaping works located on the former Canterbury Prison site in the heart of Canterbury. It has specialist accommodation which includes a teaching mortuary, health and wellbeing simulated hospital wards and associated spaces, specialist engineering workshops, computer suites, criminology suite, sports science and chemistry and biology labs.
This new flagship building has named after Verena Holmes, born in 1889 in Ashford, Kent, a trailblazer for women in the industry as arguably the first female in the UK to have a full-time career as a professional mechanical engineer. The new 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.
HMY were appointed by the University following an outline planning consent achieved by BDP. HMY were engaged to review the form and layout of the consented building with a view to a rationalised layout and a reduction in footprint and build costs and a changing requirement from the University. HMY worked with the executive architect Hamilton Architects of Belfast, to complete RIBA Stage 3 & 4 detailed design and planning and then complete the building through the site construction phases providing local site inspection and reporting duties.
