Marina Miceli
Europe Press Office,London
The Beaufort building in Ringaskiddy, Co. Cork which is set to house the largest dedicated team of marine researchers globally was officially opened this month by Ireland’s Prime Minister, Enda Kenny.
The project is a flagship research facility integrating three existing research entities, the Hydraulics & Maritime Research Centre (HMRC), the Coastal Marine Research Centre (CMRC) and the Sustainable Energy Research Group (SERG).
It comprises a 4-storey office and research building servicing a state of the art wave tank testing facility which houses three watertight reinforced concrete research tanks – the largest of which covers an area of 480m² and extends 4m below finished floor level. The laboratory will be dedicated to multidisciplinary research and knowledge transfer to support sustainable resource development and innovation in the maritime field, including areas such as ocean energy, coastal governance and energy storage.
Arup was part of a multidisciplinary design team, providing civil, structural, geotechnical, environmental, traffic and flood engineering consultancy on the project.
The Beaufort building will be an anchor building in facilitating the development of the iMerc masterplan. The next building to be constructed is the iMerc Cluster building and design teams are currently being procured. When constructed, it will house iMerc and a variety of research and innovation incubation spaces to aid in the expansion of the industry and developing employment.
