Client: University of Southampton Science Park
Location: Chilworth, Hampshire
Value: £3,000,000

Kenneth Dibben House

Kenneth Dibben House is a self-contained two storey building providing some 2,800 square metres of ‘move-on’ business space together with full office support facilities and car parking. The Science Park required the accommodation in order to offer firms larger premises when they outgrew the Incubator Units elsewhere on the campus.

Since demand is unpredictable, the building was designed on a speculative basis, and because the Science Park caters for a wide range of occupier the design had to maximise its flexibility by providing the opportunity to install corridors and dividing walls in a variety of positions to suit the area requirements of the tenants. Similarly, the service provision had to accommodate this flexible approach and the support accommodation is concentrated in the centre of the building for ease of access and economy of space.

The new structure sits on an area previously occupied by a car park and between an established building and an avenue of lime trees which are subject to a tree preservation order. Moreover, as car parking is located on both sides of the building, it had to be readily accessible from either side whilst retaining a ‘front’ and a ‘back’ for the purpose of legibility.

Simple materials – brickwork, metal rainscreen cladding and aluminium fenestration – are incorporated into an attractive, low maintenance design solution.

Subsequent to completion, TKL Architects were employed to assist in the fitting out of part of the building for a specific high technology occupier.