University chooses Willmott Dixon for £3.9m refurbishment

The national fit-out and refurbishment specialist contractor will lead the £3.9 million refurbishment of the Wulfruna Building and Alan Turing Building at the university’s city campus on Wulfruna Street.

The refurbishment project will provide more than 32,000 sq ft of flexible and modern teaching spaces across the two buildings, with new finishes, layouts and furnishings.

Willmott Dixon Interiors will demolish some of the partition walls at the Wulfruna Building to form larger, multipurpose teaching spaces for use by the university’s School of Pharmacy.

The revamped facility will deliver a new pharmacy reception, as well as flexible practice and clinical skills areas, including a bespoke post-graduate teaching space and counselling rooms for the development of clinical and counselling skills.

The Alan Turing Building will undergo a refurbishment to the ground, second and part of the first floor, which will deliver a professional working environment for film, television and animation students.

Features of the new Wolverhampton Screen School will include new production space, an equipment media store, a video studio with movable partitions and a multipurpose studio which can accommodate a larger number of students. The contractor will also create new MAC labs, edit suites, staff offices and a production base room.

Works will take place over the summer, with both buildings expected to be ready for occupation at the start of the academic year in September 2021.

Phil Crowther, regional director at Willmott Dixon Interiors, said: “We’re excited at being given the opportunity to deliver modern, multipurpose facilities at the University of Wolverhampton, that will bring staff and students together. We’ll be creating active spaces that will foster collaboration and teamwork, and provide a much improved environment for people to learn in. We look forward to working in partnership with colleagues at the university to deliver the project in time for the arrival of students later this year.”

The refurbishment of the Wulfruna Building and Alan Turing Building was awarded via the Pagabo refit and refurbishment procurement framework and is targeted to return a social return on investment of 15 per cent through local spend, local labour and added value activities.

Willmott Dixon Interiors has committed to delivering employability programmes in partnership with JTL Training, as well as mentoring opportunities, mental health workshops and a combination of virtual and on site work experience placements.

The project team includes Faithful+Gould as project manager and professional quantity surveyor, architect and principal designer, Glancy Nicholls Architects and structural engineer, CWA. Temporary works will be undertaken by CWA/Bridges Pound.