
University of Edinburgh Wellbeing Centre
Key Facts
Client
University of Edinburgh
Location
7 Bristo Square, Edinburgh, EH8 7AL
Internal Floor Area
3177m2
Completion
September 2020
Putting health and wellbeing at the forefront of design, student life and the university experience
Project Info
For the first time, the University of Edinburgh’s new Health and Wellbeing Centre on Bristo Square brings together the institution’s previously disconnected Counselling and Disability services, University Pharmacy and University Health Centre, in a now fully accessible facility dedicated to both clinical and holistic mental and physical well-being.
Located in the heart of the University’s Central Area Campus, the innovative, student-focussed facility adapts an existing 1970s Modernist building, originally the University’s Refectory and latterly bookable teaching space, through peeling back decades of unsympathetic interventions, reconfiguring its internal layout to achieve accessible routes, and creating a new front door and arcade onto a prominent civic square.
A new, light-filled glazed entrance arcade extrudes out from the plinth of the 1970s Modernist building, introducing accessible routes and connection from Bristo Square to the upper levels.
Internally, significant reconfiguration of the lower three floors allows light to penetrate deep into the plan, with the formation of group workshop areas, a student lounge-social space, and opportunity for expansion to meet future service demand with our proposal achieving a 55% increase in dedicated consultation rooms.



