Development of a design brief and strategic design appraisal, along with space planning 24,000sqm appraisal resolved to a new build option of approx. 6,000sqm.

The E3 Project will bring together three schools within Trinity College Dublin into a single entity, combining Computer Science and Statistics, Natural Sciences, and Engineering. The existing estate for these Schools occupied around 18,000sqm, located across over twenty buildings. The projected growth of students and researchers to be generated by E3, suggests an increase of around 50% in teaching and learning spaces, which creates the need for a new 6,000sqm facility to achieve the key aims of the Project.

BFF were selected by a competitive process to assist Trinity College with the initial analysis to develop a brief, and to set out a design strategy for the implementation of the E3 project. Initial exercises focused on an analysis of the existing provision, both in terms of the suitability and condition of the existing buildings, and in terms of their adaptability to support new ways of teaching learning and research. This resulted in a strategy to retain E3 provision within a greatly reduced number of locations, better suited to the ethos of the E3 project.

In parallel with this exercise, the main briefing process centred on establishing the teaching and learning requirements of the three Schools to be accommodated within a new building, show-piecing the systemic co-location at the heart of E3. This building will be based on new methods of teaching and learning (with an emphasis on project based learning), and will feature a generous space allocation for social learning. A project based learning studio will also be an important part of the vision for delivering an integrated E3 vision.

The project also included the Space Planning of the 2000sqm of vacated spaces left over by the relocation of the teaching provision within the existing Schools’ estate which are to be reassigned to staff and research groups. BFF are carried out a space planning exercise to test these opportunities against the constraints of their existing buildings.