November 22 2021

The University of Stirling is bidding to build an aquaculture hub providing office, research and training facilities to study fish-borne disease and experimental organisms.

The National Aquaculture Technology and Innovation Hub is billed as a UK centre for aquatic food production, leading the development of technologies and systems to support the production of new forms of seafood.

Atkins architects are to deliver on these aims with proposals to redevelop an existing aquarium behind a boiler house near the A-listed Pathfoot Building which will be stripped back to its frame to permit complete replacement of all building fabric and services. A combination of aluminium profile cladding, perforated steel plant frame and insulated sinusoidal cladding will be employed, deferring to the historic campus.

In a statement, the applicant wrote: "The material selection complements the immediate context of the Pathfoot and boilerhouse and the wider campus, choosing monochrome tones of cladding, black-framed glazing, to the new extension, and an aluminium cladding finish to the existing building behind."

A two-storey extension will provide a better sense of arrival to this new facility, demonstrating ambition beyond a purely functional shed with a first-floor office and meeting rooms expressed on the facade behind full-height glazing. 

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