Unlocking value across your university estate

Exterior view of the Sir William Henry Bragg Building

Every university estate is unique, with complex and varied assets that are connected to surrounding communities. In a rapidly evolving sector, how can universities create dynamic, thriving and energy-efficient estates, while making the most of existing resources? Addressing this complexity calls for an approach that is both pragmatic and future-focused – from the campus to the wider organisation.

Our teams are helping education leaders across every aspect of their estates and operations. With experience ranging from decarbonisation and energy resilience strategies to adaptable design for space utilisation and the repurposing of outdated assets, we design learning environments that are sustainable, dynamic, engaging and accessible for all.

Our expertise lies in assessing, planning, designing and delivering smarter, more sustainable spaces – to unlock value across your estate.

Contact us

We can facilitate a conversation with your senior leadership and estates team to:

Discover the real estate, operational and strategic challenges slowing progress.
Pinpoint high impact actions and opportunities that unlock value, funding and organisational change.
Understand how well your estate is positioned for climate, operational and future shocks, and what to do next.

Outcome - a clear, aligned direction for your estate, shaped with your leadership team.

How we can help

1

Operational resilience

By reviewing your buildings’ performance, we develop interventions to maximise cost reduction and energy efficiency.
2

Organisational change

Working with your team, we help manage change across the wider organisation, to help put your sustainability goals into practice.
3

Integrated planning and design

We use a systems-led design approach to ensure efficiencies and unlock tangible value for your estate.
4

Asset optimisation

We combine data driven insights and engineering expertise to maximise the potential of your existing assets in the short and long term.
5

Net zero carbon buildings

We develop focused strategies that reduce carbon emissions across the estate to help you achieve your net zero carbon goals.
6

Funding advisory

We provide advice at all stages of an asset’s life cycle on funding, feasibility and planning.

Projects

Learn more about our Education projects

Arup was appointed as technical consultant from RIBA Stage 0 as a trusted advisor. This work helped incorporate the old School of Mining which has been sensitively repurposed and extended learning and research purposes. The £96m facility includes a new storey, with connections to a new seven storey complex that provides an impressive range of environments to foster interdisciplinary collaboration.

Arup formed a joint venture with the University of Glasgow to develop a net zero carbon strategy, informing the university’s ongoing consultation in response to the climate emergency and how it plans to achieve its targets. This work helped the university to understand how external factors such as decarbonisation – combined with estate expansion plans – would impact greenhouse gas emissions.

Arup provided multidisciplinary engineering services to The University of Nottingham’s George Green Library, transforming it from an underused 1960s building into a modern facility with high sustainability credentials and an excellent BREEAM rating. This helped to demonstrate that it’s possible to not just refurbish existing buildings, but to successfully adapt them without the need for demolition and rebuilding.

Seeking a purpose-built home for its Business School, the University of Southampton opted to refurbish an existing sustainable building around the needs of its staff and students. Arup’s multidisciplinary team reconfigured the internal layout and building systems of the former Lloyd’s Register Global Technology Centre to create a variety of flexible spaces.