Exeter University ESI
The University of Exeter Environment and Sustainability Institute is based at Exeter’s Penryn Campus where they lead cutting-edge interdisciplinary research into problems of environmental change. In so doing enhancing people’s lives by improving their relationships with the environment.
Hart Miller Design were invited to work with building manager FX Plus at the Penryn Campus to design the integration of a catering offer to the heart of the building on the ground floor – the Interactive Space.
The BDP designed building contains light-filled laboratories and collaborative working areas for three research themes: clean technologies, natural environment, and social science and sustainability.
We were brought in as the building neared completion with the brief to develop a concept for interpretation graphics that would represent the activities undertaken within the building and draw reception together with the collaboration space. This was alongside the more practical aspects of creating a café servery counter design and build.
Our challenge was to use both graphics and implementation of furniture layouts so that a natural order of flow could be established within the ground floor. The outcome was a design solution that would encourages the very activity of interaction without causing conflict to the flow and functional aspects of this area of the building.
