New Engineering Building for the National University of Ireland, Galway

This new 14,300 square metre building unites the University’s five engineering departments housing undergraduate and postgraduate facilities for 1300 students including laboratories, research facilities, workshops, computer suites and lecture rooms. This landmark development represents a step change in engineering accommodation, providing a holistic 21st century learning environment and makes a vital contribution to the School of Engineering & Informatics, the University and the City of Galway. This project involved bringing together the five Engineering Faculties from thirteen separate locations across campus into a single building. Extensive briefing with the end users was a key aspect of this project. The acoustic design of all educational spaces and associated ancillary spaces was based on the British Building Bulletin 93 (BB93) from scheme design stage to completion. The acoustic design focussed on the external building fabric including the façade windows and curtain wall system sound insulation to control noise ingress from the environment, the internal sound insulation, the room acoustics of the main spaces within the building, such as teaching rooms, research rooms, foyer and office spaces, establishing architectural finishes and room shapes to control mainly speech. The acoustic design also focussed on the control of building services noise within the building and breaking out to surrounding noise sensitive receivers.