The Nucleus Building, Edinburgh

2025 RIAS Award

Education
Sheppard Robson for the University of Edinburgh
Contract value: Confidential
GIA: 8,130m²

This outstanding addition to the King’s Buildings campus establishes a vibrant new heart for the University of Edinburgh, seamlessly integrating teaching, learning and social spaces. Responding to a complex and ambitious brief, Sheppard Robson has created an inviting, flexible environment that enhances the student experience while setting a new benchmark for sustainable and inclusive campus design.

The architectural language is both contextual and contemporary, with a robust brick colonnade forming a civic base that supports a composition of carefully scaled volumes above. These are sensitively aligned with the adjacent library and wider campus context, while the corner entrance block is deftly rotated to draw users in and establish a clear new pedestrian route across the site.

Internally, the project’s real success lies in its spatial organisation. It is both complex and intuitive: generous staircases and a luminous atrium connect the building vertically and flood it with natural light. 

Despite the scale, it retains a human-centred approach. A rich array of breakout areas, social spaces and study environments support different ways of learning, from quiet individual focus to lively collaboration. 

Each area has its own material character and acoustic quality, contributing to a layered, legible and engaging interior. This diversity of spatial types enables the building to flex with changing modes of study, teaching and socialising, making it a resilient and responsive learning environment for students.

Sustainability is integral to the design, with natural ventilation strategies, grey water recycling, integration into the campus’s district heating network, and a significant photovoltaic array. Super-insulated teaching blocks and solar-shaded glazed study zones make clever use of passive environmental strategies to enhance comfort and efficiency.

This is a deftly executed piece of civic architecture – a considered, enduring and generous response to a multifaceted brief that sets a powerful precedent for the future of university design in Scotland.

View all of our RIAS Scotland winners here, and all our RIBA UK Award winners here.

View the full RIBA UK Awards 2025 process.