RAU Innovation Village

Set amongst the idyllic Royal Agricultural University’s Cirencester campus, the new Innovation Village promises a cohesive, carbon neutral enterprise park.

Location

Cirencester, UK

Area

13,000 m2

Status

In Progress

Year

Client

Royal Agricultural University (RAU)

The scheme will deliver up to 27,600 m² of mixed-use floorspace across four development areas, conceived as a distributed cluster of low-rise, modular buildings, as a living campus that will grow and evolve over time and allowing them to integrate within the existing parkland context. The Innovation Village will welcome researchers, entrepreneurs, farmers, policymakers and community members into a shared space dedicated to the future of land, food, nature and climate.

With an ambition for carbon-negative operation and an embodied carbon target of below 100 kgCO₂e/m², the project represents some of the most ambitious sustainability standards applied to a UK campus development.

“Demonstrating new innovations in sustainability, energy-usage, build-quality, materials and landscaping, the development will be a truly-net-zero and exemplary sustainable development, the likes of which do not currently exist anywhere else.”

RAU Spokesperson

Creating impact through estate-wide planning and insight

Net Zero Carbon

How do you plan the best approach to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 for buildings of different typologies, ages, uses, and conditions?

Net Zero Carbon Estates Strategies

Going beyond circularity in building design

Circular Economy

How do we break down barriers to deliver imaginative circular economy solutions?

Transitioning to a Circular Economy

Vision

All vision

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Design

At the heart of the campus will be a car-free green core: a quiet, walkable landscape threaded with wetland basins, wildflower meadows and cycle paths. Biodiversity is central, with a target of 20% net gain in habitats and species across the site.

The designs are planned in phases to make incremental enhancements to the campus. The first of which is a collaboration hub combining a conference facility, co-working and office space, seminar and teaching rooms, and a café. Closely integrated with the existing Alliston Centre, this building establishes the social and intellectual core of the innovation ecosystem.

Beyond this hub, clusters of research and innovation buildings are distributed across the site accommodating laboratories, R&D facilities and flexible office environments for start-ups, established businesses and academic users alike. Individual buildings are deliberately modest in scale, typically 1,000 m² to 2,300 m² and one to three storeys, designed to sit amongst the forestry without dominating it.

The programme also includes a single-storey community café adjacent to the central wetland landscape, the retrofitted Trent Lodge providing a hospitality function, and indicative provision for supporting uses including a potential conference hotel, crèche and farm-shop-related facilities.

As well as a significantly low embodied carbon, operational energy is targeted to reach carbon-negative status, with buildings designed as energy-positive: generating renewable energy via integrated photovoltaics and exporting surplus energy to the wider campus.

This is achieved through the proposed combination of Passivhaus Premium, BREEAM Outstanding, WELL Building Standard design standards, as well as ‘Building With Nature’ - embedding ecological and landscape performance into the design framework