TQA1 - Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, University of Bristol

Project Overview

Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus (TQEC) is a flagship development that brings the University of Bristol to the commercial centre of the city, to the east of Brunel’s iconic Temple Meads station, to anchor it in the economic renaissance and renewal of Bristol and the wider city-region. TQEC will provide the space to reimagine the University’s role as one of the world’s great civic universities, empowering and enabling a transformed relationship with the city region, its businesses, communities, and government.

The TQA1 Building will support the economic growth of Bristol and the wider West of England by:

• Strengthening the role of Bristol City Centre as an economic powerhouse, bringing together high densities of knowledge-intensive firms, innovators and entrepreneurs, investors, and anchor institutions for innovation, including the University of Bristol, and Government;
• Acting as a catalyst and hub for the creation of an innovation district in the Temple Quarter area, which could significantly enhance the economic growth and competitiveness of the city as a whole;
• Solving societal challenges as part of a mission-orientated approach, providing a clear focus for innovation and business growth interventions, and creating social and environmental (as well as economic) value; Accelerating productivity growth in Bristol; and,
• Supporting inclusive growth, enabling people to access opportunities that will be created in the Temple Quarter.
• The first phase of the TQEC includes development of a new 6 storey 38,350m2 academic building (TQA1).
• Public Realm / Highway Works
• Permanent landscaping works

See rendered Images of scheme design for the TQA1 building;

Schedule of Work – October to December 2023

Groundworks – Concrete pile caps, ground beams, retaining walls and drainage.
Steelwork – Erection of structural columns and trusses
Frame – In-situ concrete columns and upper floor slabs
Logistics – Erection of 3 No. tower cranes

Construction Update

Piling has been successfully completed in August as planned with over 15,000 linear metres of piling installed on the site. This work now facilitates the progression of groundworks to form the building’s foundations that will be used to build the superstructure. These works will continue through until the end of the year and allow the progression of structural steel work and insitu concrete frame works from October. These operations will be supported by the erection of 3 No. tower cranes, which will be erected over weekends from mid-October.

The above activities require the continuation of regular delivery of concrete and steel to site as well as large plant movements as new workfaces are created / finished. Works have been planned to maximise efficiency and reduce the durations involved as well as using latest equipment and effective controls to limit nuisance effects of these operations.

Additional Information

BAM Nuttall are due to start Network Rail works between our site and the train station this October , which will necessitate access and egress of plant and deliveries in accordance with their management plans and agreement with BCC.

Social Value

We endeavour to implement social value on all our projects, see below for projects in the pipeline and being progressed.
Defibrillator is now onsite for emergency public use and is located on our site hoarding
Clothes for homeless pegs attached to our hoarding.

Educational programmes – more to follow but work started with University of Bristol to use site as a learning resource and plans to engage students in local schools.

Hoarding artwork being updated to provide more information on this project.

A local artist has produced a piece of artwork using an item of plant which can be seen around the city.

A Cycling Safety Event will be arranged over the coming months.

Pedestrians and Cyclists

Safe access and egress of our site vehicles over the public use of the footpath and cycleways is of paramount importance to us. As such we have worked closely with Bristol City Council over the past 12 months to develop proposals to address the changing needs of the site. In the months of May and June we have constructed a new layby which saw the temporary closure of this footpath and subsequent redirection to the south side of Cattlemarket Road.

Now that this work has been completed (June 23) we have reopened the footpath and cycleway with traffic calming measures to ensure awareness and caution when crossing our busy entrance. These measures include drop kerbs and tactile paving at the site entrance / exit, advanced signage to warn of crossing vehicles / safety related information and the installation of barriers to create a physical measure to reduce the speed of cycles over our entrance. This measure allows our site gate personnel to control the safe entry and release of vehicles to / from site.

These traffic calming measures have been agreed with Bristol City Council, and will be supported by the use of our gate personnel to control our construction traffic. Our aim is united with the council, and our client the University of Bristol, to install effective measures to control the risk to public from the site’s traffic movements.

We have illustrated the approved layout of these measures below;

Sustainability Performance

We aim to ensure our construction activities do not harm the local environment. To drive sustainability on the project we set deliverables around key focus areas. These include both Resource Efficiency and Social Value.

Since the commencement of site operations we have been monitoring our performance in these key areas, and once we have sufficient data we will share the performance of this. We expect to have this data after 6 months of site operations which will then be periodically updated.